


One Way Road

by ausfil



Category: Westlife
Genre: AU, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Barebacking, Bittersweet, Bucket List, Character Death, Childhood Friends, Conversations, Crying, Death, Dementia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Family, Fast Build, Fluff, Football, Forest Sex, Getting to Know Each Other, Goodbyes, Grief/Mourning, Growth, Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations, Loneliness, Loss, Love, M/M, Male Friendship, Mortality, Outdoor Sex, Past Child Abandonment, Personal Growth, Reminiscing, Sad, Spit As Lube, Sunrises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-23 21:17:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21087983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ausfil/pseuds/ausfil
Summary: Everyone is born with a number. A countdown on their hands that decreases every day until their final one, until their palm reads1.With five days left until his death, Shane wants to make the most of it.With five days left until his death, Nicky doesn’t care.With five days left until their death, they don’t expect to find another reason they want to live for in each other.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> !! PLEASE READ THE TAGS FOR POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNINGS !!

_11:54 PM, 5th of July, 1979._

The baby’s cries filled the hospital room, a sound that was like heaven’s callings, a sound that filled their hearts with eternal sunshine.

“He’s here,” Peter let out a breath that had held the past nine months’ worth of anxiety. “I can’t believe he’s actually here.”

“Do we have a name?” The nurse asked, she herself almost moved to tears.

“Yes. Shane,” Mae replied, then whispered it again to herself. _Shane. Shane FIlan. Shane_. The syllables themselves made her smile.

The nurse wrote down the name on the form in front of her, ticking boxes that she had to record. “Are you ready to read his palm?”

Peter and Mae looked at each other. They’d heard how hard this was. Or how hard it could be. A moment that could sweep away this entire day’s miracle, or a moment that could brighten it even more, flooding relief into their minds.

“It’ll be okay.” Mae held her son’s small hand tight in hers. She would no matter what. No matter how many days his palm says he can live, she would be there to hold this hand.

Peter nodded and took a deep breath. Those two seconds he had to wait until his wife turned over Shane’s hand felt longer than his entire life, than his own counted down days.

The numbers lit up in green on his palm.

An uncomfortable silence circulated the room until one of the nurses sighed.

** _14317_ ** _._

“Wait, what… How many years is that?” It sounded awfully short. Peter looked down at his palm. His own number was larger than his newborn’s. His lips started shaking.

“Fourteen thousand, that’s… that’s not even forty, is it?” Mae looked up at a nurse who was pursing her lips apologetically, who wasn’t saying anything. Jesus Christ, she wanted her to say something. _Anything_. She then looked at her husband, the tears in his eyes holding a very different meaning to the ones when Shane had just been born.

She looked back down at Shane’s palm, the number rooted upon his precious precious skin.

The clock hit 12:00 AM.

She felt her heartbreak when the number went down.

** _14316_ ** _._


	2. Day One

“’To die will be an awfully big adventure.’ That’s from Peter Pan, um, which I guess is kind of fucked and dark for a kid’s book.”

There’s a small ripple of laughter through the circle.

“Yeah,” Kian laughs back and scratches his head. “Anyways. I have three days left,” he raises his palm for people to see, “and when I read that, I… I don’t know. I didn’t know how to feel. It’s scary to find out what’s on the other side. What this _awfully big adventure _will hold for me. If there even will be one. I guess I’ll find out in three days, um,” Kian hears his voice tremble a bit. “But today will probably be the last day I’ll be here.”

Kian looks around the support group, familiar faces with sympathetic, empathetic smiles, kind hands that had held his while he was here, that also each held a number less than fifty.

“I just wanted to say thank you to everyone. This group saved my life. Ironically,” Kian scoffs, “but after this today, I’ll be going back to my hometown with this one,” Kian taps Mark’s thigh and looks up at him. Gets a weary smile back. “And this one,” he taps Shane’s. Shane doesn’t look back up at him. “We rented a beach house. It’ll be nice. So uh-“

Someone from the opposite side of the circle sniggers. All eyes end on him and his twisted grin.

“Sorry, is there a problem?” Kian raises an eyebrow. He’d never seen this guy here before.

“No, just…” He sniggers again. Kian swears he almost got up to punch that nose in. “You have three days left and you want to be on some beach?”

“I love the beach.”

“Right. Sorry.” He really doesn’t look sorry at all. “Go on with your story.”

The counsellor jumps in with a gentle smile. “Let’s try to be supportive here. We’re all going through the same thing. We’re all here to listen, to share, to relate. What’s your name?”

“Nicky.”

“Right, Nicky, do you mind speaking after Kian finishes? Listening is just as important as sharing your own story.”

“No,” Kian crosses his arms. “I’m finished. Your turn.”

“Babe…” Mark whispers from the side but he gets waved away.

“No, I want to hear what he has to say.”

The counsellor looks utterly torn.

“Fine,” Nicky rolls his eyes. “Like I said, I’m Nicky. It’s my first time here. But I’m just here to listen.”

“There’s nothing you want to share?” The counsellor jots down his name.

Nicky shrugs.

“How many days on your palm, Nicky? If you’d like to share that.”

He holds it up for everyone to see. Hates the way some people avert their eyes when they see the **_5_**.

She asks if there’s anything else he’d like to add. He shakes his head, and looks at the next person in the circle.

***

“Cheers,” Kian smirks and holds his lit cigarette out. Mark smirks back and clicks his against Kian’s.

“You guys are weird,” Shane rolls his eyes and puts his hands on his pockets. “We’re going to mine after you finish those, yeah? To pick up my bags.”

Kian nods and takes a long drag. “Are you sure you want to come?”

Shane tries to not look hurt. The genuine care in Kian and Mark’s eyes help. “I don’t have to, if you guys want some alone time. But I’ll be staying at my own place anyways.”

“No, of course we want you to come. I just…” Kian hesitates. Fills the gap with another drag of the cigarette, and Shane would prefer if he doesn’t say whatever he’s going to say. Because he knows what it is. “You have five days left, Shay.”

Yeah. There it is. Shane nods and looks down at his feet, tapping his heel on the concrete floor of this carpark. “I know,” he mutters.

“I just want you to be a hundred percent sure you want to come with us. That’s all.” Kian puts a hand on his shoulder. It feels heavier than usual.

“I am. I want to go back too. I have to visit my dad anyways, before I… Yeah.” He slides his hand back out of his pocket and looks over his palm.

**_5_**.

He has no idea how to plan these last five days. He’d thought about it. Of course he had. Had absolutely tortured himself trying to come up with the perfect plan to spend his time until the last goodbye.

He had come up with a bucket list for his final months. And it had gone well – travelling, getting piss-drunk with Kian and Mark, bungee jumping (which he absolutely hated). But now that he only has five days, it doesn’t feel like enough. Though he supposes that’s the whole point.

The next thing on the list was to go to his hometown, go back to the streets and trees of Sligo, and see his dad.

He also only has three days left with his best friend. It’s a win-win, if there is such a thing here.

“That’s that Nicky fella, right? From the group.” Kian cocks his head towards the blonde man fiddling with his car keys. Before either Mark or Shane can stop him, Kian stomps out his cigarette and marches over there. “Hey.”

Nicky looks up, a little surprised, then rolls his eyes when he realises it’s Kian. “Urgh. What do you want?”

“What was your problem in there?” Kian crosses his arms. “That was my last time going to that group and you ruined-“

“Look, I’m not having the best day, okay? I’m fucking _dying_ soon. Can you just…” Nicky catches himself and suspires. His face falls a little bit, along with his tone. “Can you leave me alone?”

An inkblot of shame reddens Kian’s cheeks and the sharp edges of his face soften one by one. He looks at Nicky in silence for a bit. “Sorry,” He mumbles in the end.

Nicky finally unlocks his car and opens the door.

“We’re going to Sligo.” Kian blurts, and Nicky stops. “West coast. You should come.”

Shane raises his eyebrows. Mark’s ones are already off his face.

“What? Me?” Nicky looks just as confused.

“Come with us. What else are you gonna do?” Kian shrugs. “Unless you want to spend your last days wasting the little time you have left, at least go on a trip.”

Nicky switches his gaze between the three of them. “Are you lads winding me up or something?”

“I really don’t think any of us have time to wind other people up. That’s not it.” Kian sighs and closes Nicky’s car door again. “Look, I’ve lived my entire life trying to ignore this shit,” he holds up his hand. The **_3_** pierces through Nicky’s pupils. “And there’s nothing I regret more. I lived every single day like it meant nothing, and now that it’s actually over soon, I feel stupid. I wasted so much time, you know? I should have spent more time doing things I love. Spent more time with the people I love.”

Kian’s voice breaks a little. He reaches out to hold Mark’s hand. It’s already there waiting for him. He looks down at their entwined fingers, and when he looks back up at Nicky, Nicky’s looking at their joint hands too.

“Sorry, I… I don’t know if I’m overstepping. I know we don’t know each other, but if you’re feeling the same way… My point is, I just hate it when I see other people do the same thing. Wasting time.”

“You think that’s what I’m doing? Just wasting time and doing nothing?” Nicky frowns defensively. “You’re right. You _don’t _know me.”

Shane puts his hand on Kian’s shoulder, because something on that face snaps and Kian isn’t exactly someone to hold back. “Let’s just go,” Shane tells him. “Bye, Nicky.”

“Fine,” Kian mutters. “Look, just… I don’t know. Good luck.”

They don’t wait for an answer. They turn around and head towards their car and when Shane asks why he invited a random, Kian shrugs.

“He reminded me of me. I’ve been there, you know? We all have.” Kian says as he climbs into the driver’s seat. “That might have been my last chance to help someone. And it could have been fun, having someone else there.”

“You just have to be everyone’s hero, don’t you?” Mark teases and clicks on his seatbelt. Laughs when he hears Shane snicker in the backseat.

Kian’s about to say something when there’s a knock on his window. He rolls it down.

“Listen, if that offer’s still… um…” That arrogant smile from before is wiped off Nicky’s face as he twirls his fingers, scratches the back of his head as those pale cheeks blotch into a bit of colour. “This is weird.”

Kian smirks, crosses his arms triumphantly. He looks at Mark and Shane for approval, and they just shrug. “Follow our car. We’re going to Shane’s to pick up his bags first. Then we can go to yours and pack. What have you got to lose, honestly?”

***

Nicky thinks he might get murdered, following these three strangers to god knows where to do god knows what. He guesses there’s not much to lose, honestly.

Nicky puts in his earphones. He doesn’t press play on anything though. He fixes his gaze out the car window, observing as the scenery changes from tall buildings to tall trees, packed quads of people to freely roaming sheep and cows, and he listens in on the conversations that he’s not really a part of.

“Remember when you punched that kid for calling you a fag in high school?” Shane slaps his knees and laughs.

This has been going on for at least the past hour. Remember this when we were kids? Remember that in high school? Remember the time you did this?

“Hey, he called all of us fags.” Kian defends himself. “I did it purely out of my love for you two idiots.”

Nicky wonders if anyone from his own hometown is thinking these things about him. If anyone will wonder where he disappeared to when he gets murdered by these three people who remind him of innocence. If even two people in Dublin will say ‘hey, remember the time Nicky did this great thing with us? I’ll miss Nicky.’

Because he can honestly say he won’t really miss anyone in Dublin. There’s no real desire for him to say a proper goodbye to everybody. Unless it’s a farewell-fuck-you, then he’ll get on a flight straight to Dublin.

“I still remember when…”

***

It’s weird, walking into Shane’s family home in Sligo. He remembers feeling so excited when he’d gotten his first flat in Dublin after he’d moved there with Kian and Mark - a tiny two-bedroom apartment that they’d shared for years until Shane moved out on his own ten years ago at twenty-nine.

But this - this was where he grew up with his family. Where he had come running home crying after falling on concrete, where he’d had sleepovers with Kian and Mark in high school. Though he’d been unaware that those two had just been waiting for him to fall asleep so they could have sex underneath the sheets.

Shane smirks at the memory of throwing cushions at them when they’d told him years later.

He puts his bags down, then goes back to the car to help Nicky with his.

He was looking forward to some time alone in his hometown. Staying with a stranger wasn’t really on his bucket list, but over the three hour car ride, he contemplated it. He had looked at Kian and Mark holding hands in the front seats, and maybe it’s dumb, but for at least these final days, he didn’t want to be the only one alone.

There isn’t an inch of him that’s spiteful, but seeing those hands interlinked in front of him while he was in the backseat with someone he barely knew the name of, he didn’t exactly feel like most loved person in the world.

Maybe it’s dumb, but at least he would have someone to talk to occasionally, even if Nicky did seem like a bit of a dickhead. Or a lot like a dickhead.

“So this is your childhood home?” Nicky asks.

“Yeah. You can sleep in my dad’s room.”

Nicky looks a little confused. “Wait, is your dad here, or?”

“No. He’s in a home.” Shane lugs the bags in and opens the room’s door to an empty bed. It had been empty for a while. He puts down Nicky’s bags and puts his hands in his pockets. “Um. If you need anything, I’ll be in my room.”

“Oh.” Nicky nods, and Shane leaves without another word.

Nicky looks around the foreign room. God, what in the world is he doing here? If he hadn’t come, he could have at least watched TV or something. This room doesn’t even have a bloody TV.

He sits down on the bed that creaks with his every movement, and fishes out his phone. He scrolls through content that means nothing to him - pictures of his old schoolmates all having babies, celebrating life, achievements - while he doesn’t even know what he’s doing with his life on his fifth last day.

How fantastic.

He groans at all the happy photos. At the sappy captions beneath the photos.

He feels ridiculous sitting on this bed, in the house of someone who probably doesn’t even want him here. When Shane offered in the car that Nicky stay at his place, he didn’t exactly look excited about it.

But he’d also rather stay here than go home, back to nothing. Not knowing what he’s doing would be the same back home. At least it’s a little different here. At least he can somehow try and do something, even if it is just making conversation with this unwelcoming stranger.

He puts his phone back in his pocket then walks with conviction. For once in his life, he feels like he has to make an effort, and this is probably the only space he could do so. He knocks on Shane’s door.

“Come in.”

Shane’s hunched over his desk when Nicky walks inside, spinning a pen in between his fingers. He looks over at Nicky, a raised eyebrow asking why he’s here.

“Just um, wanted to know if I could have a cup of tea from your kitchen or something.”

“Yeah, help yourself to anything.” Shane shows him a small smile then goes back to whatever’s on his desk.

Nicky rolls back on his heels, to his toes, then feels himself take a step forward. “Is that your will or something?”

Shane shakes his head. “Bucket list.”

Oh. Shane has a plan. Nicky isn’t sure if he’s supposed to have one of those. It’s probably good to, considering the apathetic number on his skin, but he doesn’t even know where he would start. These last five days don’t feel much different to all of the ones before. “What’s on it?”

Shane shrugs then flips the paper on its face. Nicky doesn’t know why he feels offended, but he does. “Just stuff. You want that cup of tea?”

Shane stands up and heads to the kitchen. The paper on the desk taunts at Nicky, but he decides to leave it. He doesn’t need to know what’s on a stranger’s bucket list. He follows the man out.

Taking a seat on the kitchen counter, he watches as Shane prepares the cups and boils the water.

“Can I ask you something?”

Nicky doesn’t know if he has the best feeling about this, but he nods anyway.

“Why did you follow us?” Shane’s eyebrow jerks up like this is some sort of challenge.

“Because your friend asked me to.”

“But you didn’t owe him anything. You didn’t have to come.”

“If you don’t want me here, you can just tell me, you know?” Nicky spits. He gets it. This guy has five days left too and he seems like he cares a lot more, and having some random guy in his house probably wasn’t a part of that super secret list.

“No, that’s not what I mean, I just…” Shane sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. “You’re different, I guess. It’s strange.”

Nicky stares at him in silence and waits for him to continue.

“You just don’t look like you’re phased by it at all. You’re dying in five days. You know that, right?”

“And you’re patronising, you know that, right? Of course I know.” Nicky crosses his arms. This guy has some nerve.

Shane looks like he wants to hit him. Tone getting louder with every syllable that was spat into their cups that were just empty. God, Nicky didn’t come here for this. He just wanted some goddamn tea.

“Then why are you here with a bunch of people you don’t know? In a place you’ve never been to? People usually want to reminisce. Do things they’ve always wanted to do and have always been passionate about. Revisit happy memories. Get together with people they’ve spent their entire lives with. But-”

“Maybe some people don’t have that!” Nicky yells.

Shane stares back at him for a bit, eyes softening through every blink that was like taking a picture.

“Maybe some people just…” He huffs out a sharp sigh then hops off the kitchen countertop. “Whatever. Sorry I ruined your final trip. This was a stupid decision. I’ll pack my bags and go.”

Nicky stomps into his room - well, Shane’s father’s room - and opens up his suitcase. He realises he never actually took anything out. Right. This is easier, then.

He clenches around the handle of his suitcase and reels it out. Shane’s still out there in the kitchen, looking utterly flushed.

What a waste of fucking time. The one thing neither of them have.

“At least have a cup of tea,” Shane calls, and Nicky stops in his tracks. The teapot whistles. He hears Shane pour into the two cups.

Nicky groans underneath his breath and lets go of his bag. With his feet yelling at him to walk out that door and get on the first train to Dublin, Nicky finds a piece that wants to betray them. The bag stands lonely near the door as Nicky ambles back, plumping down on a stool at the kitchen counter.

The cup of tea gets slid towards him.

Neither of them say anything. Nicky thinks maybe if he downs this burning cup, he can go home. Just something to say to himself that he tried, but it was all this guy’s fault. Other people’s faults. Never his. He _tried_. But he also doesn’t want to burn his throat and not be able to talk. Though, he guesses there’s not much point to that.

“Listen,” Shane says after a slurp of his tea.

Nicky still doesn’t look at him, the sting of words still spreading on his cheek.

“Um. Next on my bucket list is to see my dad. I’m going tomorrow afternoon, but if you want me to show you around town tomorrow morning, we could do that.”

“Don’t do it just because you feel bad. I-“

“I’m sorry I said those things.” The words string out like one syllable, all stuck and rushed out together in shame. Nicky looks up at that. “I… Maybe I just wasn’t understanding. You look like you’re just living any other day, cruising by, and… I don’t know. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe I’m the weird one.”

“I don’t think anyone is. People just have different ways of dealing with it.” Nicky shrugs and takes a sip of the tea. Presses his palms against the warmth of it. “Look, really, I don’t want to impose if you have a plan. Just tell me to go back and I will. It’s fine.”

“Do you want to go back?”

He doesn’t know what this is, measuring each other up, some form of competition. He does a neutral, nonchalant shrug instead.

Shane grinds his lips for a minute, pondering. “Maybe stay for dinner if… Yeah. Otherwise I’d have to eat alone, so.”

“You’re not spending tonight with your friends?”

“We spent a lot of time together these past few weeks, just the three of us. But I’m having lunch with them on um,” Shane stops himself for a second. He knows he can say it. It doesn’t change anything whether he says it or not, but it feels like the moment he says these things, Kian will burst into the sky in flames. “On uh… Kian’s last… yeah. I want to give them some time to themselves.”

Nicky nods, keeping his face carefully straight. “Not meeting other friends here?”

“Them two are kind of my only friends.” Shane simpers.

Nicky nods again.

***

Shane had thrown together a basic stir fry for dinner. They’d sat across each other on the dining table and not seeing his father on the other side of this was odd. It had been awkward, but at least they weren’t staring into an empty chair on the other side of the table.

After clearing up, they sit on the couch together, the distance between them perpetuating a silence that eats away at every precious second.

“Do you want a drink?” Shane finally asks.

“Yes, please.” Nicky answers like he’d been waiting for that.

Shane goes to his father’s old alcohol cabinet. One that he hadn’t been allowed to touch at all when he was younger. “Whiskey or red wine?”

“Wine, thanks!” Nicky calls from the living room.

Shane isn’t the biggest fan of red wine, but he grabs two glasses anyway and sits back down. He pours and hands one to Nicky.

“Cheers?” Nicky questions and holds up his glass. Shane clings it against his. The clear refreshing sound echoes through the house and he feels alive for the first time today.

Nicky comments on how good the wine is, which in all honesty is mediocre at best, but Shane agrees with him anyway. In a scene of silence, he swirls his wine glass and pretends to know what he’s doing, and when he sneaks a few side-glances at Nicky, he has his nose buried in the wine.

Shane chews on his lip for a minute, then picks up the bottle. “It’s a 2007 bottle,” he comments. Nicky hums back, a sound of mediocre interest at the mediocre wine in this mediocre moment. “So uh, what do you do?” It’s not the most interesting question Shane could come up with, but it would have to do.

“I’m a PE teacher. Well, used to be. I quit recently.”

“Oh that’s cool. I used to have a crush on my PE teacher in high school.” Shane pokes at a joke.

“A lot of people do apparently.” Nicky chuckles back with a clumsy wink. “What about you?”

“Business. I ran a café for about fifteen years. I sold it months ago though. I wanted to do things on my bucket list.”

“Did you get to finish it?” Shane shakes his head. “You said seeing your dad’s on it, yeah?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow.”

Shane looks down at his glass. He thinks about talking through it maybe, but he doesn’t want to share too much too soon. He also has no idea what he’d say to his father, how to even process a goodbye with the man that used to be his world growing up. It would make this all too real, and he decides to leave it to tomorrow.

“What about your family? Are you going to see them this week?” Shane asks instead, takes another swig of the wine that he’s growing to be fond of.

Nicky shifts uncomfortably, and Shane regrets asking that.

“Sorry. My bad. You don’t have to tell me.“

“It’s fine,” Nicky knocks the rest of the drink back, then refills his glass again. “I um… Yeah. I don’t… really have a family. I never knew my parents.”

Nicky tries to ease the sting of that sentence with a laugh. It sounds sadder than a cry.

“I grew up with my grandmother. She’s all I ever had. She told me my parents were good people. That they were just overwhelmed when they had me and decided to leave, to take care of themselves so they could be even better parents when they come back eventually.”

“And did they?”

Nicky shakes his head. “For so many years, I waited up all night for them to come back for me. I thought, oh, maybe they just come back at night to see me. Like the fucking tooth fairy or something,” he scoffs and tries to cough out the lump in his throat. “But they never did. They never came back for me, they…. Yeah.”

“Jesus…” Shane sighs. He tries to swallow the mountain of expletives that threaten to come out towards people that he doesn’t even know. But still. _Jesus_. “That’s so hard. I’m really sorry.”

Nicky nods solemnly, a pout that’s trembling a little bit. “Sorry. That was depressing. I didn’t mean to dump that all on you. You don’t have to listen to me.”

“No, it’s fine.”

Another awkward silence follows, but as Shane watches Nicky, those shoulders look less square than before. That previous defensive, arrogant frown back from Dublin had faded past every honest word, and maybe he isn’t the biggest dick in the world. Maybe he’s a little fragile and broken. And maybe Shane likes this vulnerability. Maybe he sees himself in this man a little.

Maybe they both see something in each other.

“I’m glad you had your grandmother though,” Shane decides to break the silence. It seems to help a little. Nicky’s face eases just a tiny bit, and Shane is grateful for just that tiny bit.

“Yeah,” Nicky chuckles. “She was the sweetest. She made the best almond cookies.”

“So you _do_ have family, Nicky. And she sounds like a great one.”

“I guess I do. Yeah.” Nicky looks up at him, warmth colouring his blue eyes as he shows another small smile. “She died when I was seventeen so I don’t have anyone to say goodbye to. I don’t really have friends either, honestly. I just never really got close enough to anyone. So if you’re not spending the next few days with anyone then…”

The end of the sentence hangs in the strange air surrounding them, and Shane’s face melts into a coy smile. “Fuck, are we sad?”

“I think so, yeah.” Nicky laughs. “Less sad, though, now that I’m not actually just sitting in my cold house by myself. Oh,” He sobers up, sitting up a bit. “Only if you let me stay, obviously. You can still tell me to go.”

“I think we’re past that.” Nicky settles back down. Shows a bemused smile when Shane chuckles to himself. “Sorry. God, this wasn’t the plan at all.”

“What was the plan?”

“I spent the last six months ticking things off my bucket list. After selling my café, I did things like learning to play the guitar, buying a ridiculously expensive trench coat.”

Nicky snickers. “How much was it?”

“Like two thousand euros or something? It’s honestly not even a pretty coat. I only wore it once. But that wasn’t the point.” Shane winks, and Nicky rolls his eyes playfully. “Anyways. I travelled around Europe for about a month with Kian as well which was incredible. And these final days, I was just going to spend them here in Sligo. Revisiting everything that I had growing up. Go to restaurants that I used to love. I wanted to go back where I came from and try to enjoy it until I had to go. That was the plan.”

“And I fucked it all up, did I?” Nicky teases.

“Yeah, but hopefully in a good way. I think it’s too late to send you back anyway. You’ll get trampled in the woods.” Shane downs the rest of his glass. Pours himself another one. “I was preparing to do everything on my own, you know? To leave Kian and Mark alone so they could have time to themselves. But now that you’re here, I realise how depressing that would have been. So if you still want to stay for a bit, I… I think I could use some company.”

Nicky thinks for a bit, and he doesn’t know why his lips are smiling, why his chest is beating, but they are. “God, we really are sad.” He throws out a joke instead. When Shane laughs back, his chest is still beating. He pours himself another drink too and lifts it up high. “Cheers to being sad?”

Shane rolls his eyes but clinks against it anyways, taking a swig before lifting his up this time. “And cheers to living.”

“Urgh. You just ruined my vibe, but fine. Cheers to that too, I guess.” Nicky snickers.

Shane does too, then finishes off his drink and suddenly shifts to sit cross-legged, facing Nicky with curiosity colouring his awake eyes. “So you don’t have a bucket list or a plan or anything like that?”

“Um,” Nicky feels a little flustered at this sudden lift, with Shane staring into his soul like that. “Not really.”

“Well, if we’re going to spend time together, we can’t have you for the next five days _only _doing things for me, so think of one thing at least.”

“Just one?”

“At least one,” Shane purses his lips and holds up a finger.

Nicky chuckles and bends forward to put his glass back down on the table. He realises he’s a bit drunk when he sits back up, the room spinning for a few seconds. Shane probably is too. And he doesn’t know if it’s the wine fuelling through their bloodstreams or the thrill of this unusual situation, but when he clicks his gaze on Shane again, Shane melts into a goofy grin, and Nicky feels his heart stop for a second.

Feels like the universe stopped with him to gift him with some time, allowing him an extra sliver of the little time he had left to just look at that smile. To feel that smile. To realise he wants to see that smile again tonight. Tomorrow. In five days, before he closes his eyes.

Nicky had never believed in instant connection. Like he’d said before; he never really got close enough to anyone. He believed movies and books were of deception - a source of fantasy for people bathing in naivety.

But Shane keeps smiling at him with rosy cheeks, and maybe for the first time in his life, some naivety won’t hurt him.

This wave that washes over his nerves guides him to grab Shane’s jaw and kiss him.

Shane flinches back a little, surprised, but melts into the embrace a little and curls into the palm that’s on his jaw, arches into the mouth that’s feeling him.

When Nicky pulls back, a second of silence screeches across the room. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to say something.

“I… What was that?” Shane asks, an uncertain glint in those eyes that are studying him.

“I don’t know. I just… I was looking at you. And…” He feels chest tighten, and even more when Shane’s lips curve up shy a little. “And I wanted to do that.”

Shane nods slowly, lips pursing through a thought that resembles sensibility, but quickly trickles down into alcohol and want. Into loud heartbeats. “Do you still want to stay?”

“Yes,” Nicky answers honestly. “Only if you want me to.”

“Okay.” Shane’s shoulders relax at his answer. “Um. Do you want to do that again?”


	3. Day Two

“Do you have a middle name?”

“Yeah. Bernard James Adam.” Nicky answers.

“Excuse me, _what? _Why do you have like, ten middle names?”

“I know. It’s a lot. They really went for it. Do you have a middle name?”

“Just one boring Steven.” Nicky still laughs, and Shane appreciates it. “Your turn.”

“Erm,” Nicky thinks as he looks out the car window. This was a fun game, getting to know a man in the final five days of his life. He would honestly rather be here than anywhere else in the world. “When was your first kiss?”

“Oh, we’re going deeper, are we?” Shane scoffs. “I think I was fourteen? Kian was my first kiss, actually. We were each other’s.”

Nicky barks out a laugh. “Did he cheat on Mark?”

“Oh god no, they weren’t together back then. I’m pretty sure I would have died a lot earlier if they were and Mark found out about it.” Shane chuckles, despite himself. “Nah, we thought maybe we were going to be something, but it was just one kiss. Just some curiosity, being young and dumb.”

“Then Mark came along and you were alone forever?”

“Hey, I dated some people!” Shane retaliates on top of Nicky’s dumb laugh. He imitates the sound back. “I was in a long-term relationship until two years ago. We were together for seven years. Then he freaked out about, you know,” he shakes his right hand, “because it was getting close and maybe it just hit him that it was all ending so soon. And yeah. He left me because of it.”

“Shit, that’s dark. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, I’m over it. And I understood. I’ve seen how hard it can be for Mark so…”

“How long has he got left?”

“A long time. At least forty years.” A lump climbs up his throat even just re-picturing the faces Mark has every time he looks at Kian’s palm, every time they talk about these numbers. He can’t imagine what that must feel like. And he can’t believe how strong they’ve been this entire time, despite knowing it won’t last long at all.

Nicky swears beneath his breath.

“What about you?” Shane ups his tone. He doesn’t want to fall into a hole.

No, today was about showing Nicky around. It was about getting to know this strange man whom had somehow stumbled into the final part of his life. For better or worse, he isn’t sure yet. He’s willing to find out.

“Hm?”

“When was your first kiss? Don’t think you can get away with not answering it.”

“Urgh, fine. I was twelve. And stupid, mind you. It was at my seventh grade school dance. I dumped her the day after.”

“You’re a dick,” Shane teases. Nicky pulls a funny face with a shrug, but straightens it out when Shane parks on the street. “We’re here. This used to be my favourite café. I came here all the time growing up.”

“It looks old and tiny.”

“You’re just a spoilt city boy,” Shane smirks and climbs out of the car.

He leads Nicky to his favourite booth. The one he used to sit in almost every day after school with Kian and Mark, trying to do homework together but never actually doing them. The open textbooks had been tossed to the side and instead, they’d fought over who was going to pay for the milkshakes every time.

He looks at the corner of the wooden table to see if the mark they’d left is still there. An ‘MKS’ that they’d carved with a butter knife when the workers weren’t looking, thinking they were so cool doing that to someone else’s property.

It’s not there anymore.

He waits as Nicky reads the menu.

“Oh my god, Shane! It’s you, right? I don’t think I’ve seen you since high school graduation.” The waitress comes up to their table, and Nicky catches Shane sliding his right hand underneath the table, concealing it. “Wow, it’s been twenty years! What have you been up to?”

“Just in Dublin. Working. Nothing interesting, really. What about you?”

They exchange boring stories that Nicky doesn’t hear any of, because his head is filled with the thought of wanting to hold that hand underneath this table, because he knows that it’s probably trembling down there.

“What can I get for you guys?”

“I’ll have my usual please, if that’s still on the menu.”

“Pastrami sandwich, extra tomatoes? Of course it’s still on the menu,” the waitress winks and writes it down on her notepad, then looks at Nicky.

“I’ll just have the same. Cheers.” She writes it down and goes to the kitchen.

“You like pastrami?”

“Not really. I don’t even like tomatoes that much. But I want to see what you like. It better be good.” Shane smirks at him, and the life in the corners of those curved lips makes Nicky want to keep making him laugh. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Nothing. It’s… You kind of hid your hand when she came over.”

“Oh,” Shane brings his hand back onto the table and trails his fingers over the lit-up palm. “I just didn’t want her to realise and have her look all sad. I don’t want to deal with that.”

Nicky nods. He gets it. “As long as you’re okay,” he speaks softly.

“I am,” Shane looks away from his hand and up at Nicky’s kind eyes. “Thanks. Anyways. So today, um.”

Shane changes the subject. Nicky gets that too. He follows without hesitation “Yeah, tell me about this afternoon. We’re going to see your dad after we eat?”

Shane nods and cools his throat with the table water. “Are you sure you want to come with me? You don’t have to. I don’t imagine it’ll be any fun for you.”

Nicky shakes his head. “It’s fine. Not like I have something else worthwhile to go to.”

“Are you sure?” Shane grimaces apologetically when Nicky says that he is. “Then after that, we can do what you want to do if you thought of anything.”

“I really don’t have anything.” Nicky shrugs, and something about that infuriates Shane. That careless hiccup of shoulders.

“Nothing at all? Not even like, something you want to eat for dinner?”

“Maybe this pastrami sandwich again if it’s good.” Nicky laughs. Shane doesn’t.

“I’m not joking, Nicky. I want you to have a meaningful week too.”

“I’m here in a whole new town! I’m exploring. This _is _meaningful. People go travelling all the time, like when you said you went to Europe for a month - this is the same thing for me.”

Shane backs down with a defeated pout.

The sandwiches come out, and Shane suddenly doesn’t have much of an appetite.

He takes a bite. The taste changed. It’s not like it used to be, all those years ago.

Nicky seems to be enjoying it at least.

***

“You can wait in the car if you want,” Shane kills the ignition. He shifts in his seat like he’s sitting on spikes. His lips look infinitely dry, transitioning back and forth from biting his lip to smoothing it with a lick.

“You alright?”

Shane nods and takes a deep breath. “It’s… it’s just a lot. Um.”

“Do you want me to come in with you? Could be fun, meeting your dad.”

“Not really. He doesn’t remember who I am,” Shane confesses with a conscious half-chuckle.

Nicky wrinkles his forehead, confused. “What do you mean?”

Shane points at the sign outside the home. _Sunlight Haven_, it reads, then underneath it in smaller letters, _Dementia Aged Care._

“He always calls me Ryan. He thinks I’m just some kid that grew up in his neighbourhood years ago.”

“Oh,” Nicky grimaces. “I’m sorry.”

“No. It’s okay. We had a great relationship. I’m just glad I had time with him. We-” Shane remembers Nicky’s family story. Sudden guilt flushes his cheeks. “Um. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Please. I want to hear more about you.” Nicky looks genuine and it allows Shane’s cheeks to fade a little. “Tell me about him.”

“He was just… unreal. I got really lucky, you know? With both my parents.”

Shane smiles fondly, and just that happiness shining through those eyes makes Nicky feel warm, like he somehow knows this family too.

“This one time - I think I was ten or something - there was a new ice-cream store that opened just up the road from our house, and my mam didn’t let me go. She said I’d end up going all the time once I go because it’s so close. Then when my dad picked me up from school one day, we reached our house but he kept walking. When I asked him where he was going, he said ‘you want that ice-cream, don’t you?’”

Nicky smiles as if he already knows what his voice sounds like. Feels like he can hear it, can see Shane’s excited ten-year-old smile. The run he would have done with his short legs to that new ice-cream shop.

“He told me to keep it a secret from mam. She found out straightaway anyways. My shirt was all stained from it.” They both laugh. “Yeah, they were both great. I was really fortunate.”

“I’m glad. They sound amazing.” Nicky says, and Shane nods as he looks up at the entrance sign. His face falls a little, and Nicky didn’t expect this pain in his heart looking at that face. He wants to reach out to hold that nervous hand, but he doesn’t know if they’re there yet. “Do you want to go in and see him?”

“I…” Shane looks down at his lap, then up at the sign again. “Look, I don’t think I can do this. Can we come back another day?”

“Yeah, of course,” Nicky croons without missing a second. “Don’t force yourself. We can come back when you’re ready.”

Shane strips his eyes away from the sign and can’t find the courage to look back. Or to look at Nicky.

“I’m sorry for wasting your time.” Shane mumbles.

“This wasn’t a waste of time. I promise.” Nicky still wants to hold that hand. It looks awfully lonely, sitting on Shane’s lap, breathing in air of sorrow. He’s about to reach out, but he doesn’t know if that’s weird. If it’s too soon. He brings it back down to his lap. But Shane looks up at him. He must have seen his hand twitching.

Well, this is embarrassing.

“What?” Shane asks.

“Nothing. No. Um.” His hand twitches again. He rolls his fingers into his palm, hesitating. “I’m here for you or whatever. If you wanna…”

Nicky holds out a hand and tries to smile through his nerves.

Shane studies him for a bit, then breaks into a laugh. “You’re adorable,” Shane grabs the hand with his. “We literally made out last night. I think that’s a step further than holding hands.”

God, Nicky hadn’t even acted like this in his teenage years. He remembers thinking he was the shit, walking around with a giant head. That Nicky would never have been afraid to hold someone’s hand. Maybe he’s gotten soft with age. Maybe it’s positive growth, being cautious. Either way, he got the hand, and he feels like he’s won.

“Shut up,” Nicky laughs back and wraps his fingers around the hand in his. This feels so oddly natural, like this hand had always belonged here and had just now returned home. “I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable or anything. Just in case.”

“It’s fine. This is nice.” Shane’s thumb ever so delicately rubs his hand, and his heart lights up. “Just… what do you want to do? Tell me. Let’s do something you want to do.”

“I don’t-“

“Nicky, please…”

Shane looks so exhausted, and all Nicky wants is to uplift him. He can’t remember the last time he genuinely wanted to do something for someone else.

He thinks in silence for a while, Shane’s tired eyes not leaving him.

“Did I ever tell you I used to play football?”

“You did?”

Nicky nods. “I was a goalkeeper. For years, my biggest dream was to play in the Premier League. And I almost did, too. Me nan would have been so proud. She came to all my high school football games. My biggest fan.”

“Aw that’s so sweet. What stopped you?”

“It’s a long story, but when I was eighteen, I was offered a traineeship in the UK so I went, obviously. It was a huge opportunity. But I was eventually let go from the team I was with at the time. I was good but apparently I wasn’t _that _good.” Nicky laughs. He remembers a time where he couldn’t laugh about this.

He remembers being absolutely heartbroken when he was let go. When he came back to an empty home, his grandmother already having passed away, he remembers feeling like he let her down. Thinking that that was it. That nothing else will ever come to him and he won’t ever dream again. He had cried for weeks. Looking back on it now, he smiles at that lonely child. He loves that child.

“Anyways. I wouldn’t mind some football before I die. Do you play?”

“I used to. Just kicking around with the lads, messing about. I think there’s one at our place if you want to take it out.”

“How about we buy a new one?”

Shane raises an eyebrow, a bemused grin. “Buy a new one? Why?”

“Why not?” The cheeky glint in those eyes makes Shane laugh. “It’s not like we have to save up money or anything. Let’s buy the most expensive fuckin’ ball they have.”

***

They had managed to find one for forty quid in the sports shop. Nicky was prepared to fork out a hundred and pretend to be a high-end posh consumer, but this was expensive enough.

And here they were in the Hazelwood forest, kicking around a forty quid ball that none of them would have ever bought in the past.

This probably isn’t the best place to play football, with trees sticking up everywhere on an uneven floor, but Nicky looks excited either way, that wide grin reaching blue eyes that glimmer even brighter through the spots of sunlight sifting through the treetops, and Shane feels his heart palpitate.

“This place is beautiful,” Nicky takes his phone out to take photos of the scenery. “Do you want to be in one?”

“Together?” Shane walks up and stands next to him.

“I meant I could take one of you, but sure.” Nicky chuckles and holds the phone up. They smile for the camera, and Nicky can’t help but stare at Shane’s face on the screen. At that smile that’s even brighter than the Sun above them.

“Are you going to take it?” Shane mumbles through his teeth, maintaining his smile for the camera, and Nicky laughs.

“Sorry! Here we go. One, two…”

_Click_.

“Nice,” Nicky looks back on the photo and comments. He looks at Shane’s smile on the screen again before putting the phone back into his pocket. “So you grew up here? It’s stunning.”

“Yeah. It was great. We used to play tag and hide-and-seek and stuff in here. The amount of times we hurt ourselves running around,” Shane chuckles at the memory.

Dead skin from their countless scraped knees are probably still in the soil here, growing into trees and plants, being kissed by the Sun. He finds that consoling, like a part of him is going to be here forever, in the nature.

Shane puts the ball down. Leaves crunch as he moves it around with his feet. “So, Premier League, huh? Which team?”

“Which team do _you_ go for?”

“Man United.”

“Oh same! Looks like we’re meant to be,” Nicky jokes as he winks, and Shane _begs_ that his cheeks don’t blush. “Should we make a bet?”

“With what?”

Nicky thinks for a while, watching the ball trapped underneath Shane’s feet. “Shoot ten times, and if you get six in, I’ll get a tattoo. If I block six, then you have to get a tattoo.”

“A _tattoo?_ Fuck off.” Shane kicks the ball away.

“Why not!” Nicky runs forward to stop the ball from rolling away into the tree abyss, and puts it back in front of Shane’s feet. With an impish grin, he grabs Shane’s arm and tugs up his sleeve. “You can get my initials here,” he points at his inner arm, just above the elbow line. “Right here.”

“Yeah, and you’re going to get _my_ initials tattooed? As if.”

“I swear I will. If I lose. Which I won’t,” Nicky tugs up his own sleeve. “But if I do, I will. We’ve got nothing to lose!”

Shane’s actually considering this. He laughs at himself. Wonders what sort of magic Nicky pulled on him to make him actually consider getting someone’s name inked on his skin.

“Right. Fuck it. Bring it on,” Shane picks up the ball. Thinks his ribcage might explode when he sees Nicky run in between two trees like a child at a fare.

He puts the ball down and tries to hold back a laugh when Nicky takes his stance. He really did look professional to be fair, with those bent knees and hands ready to block every shoot and drive him into the tattoo parlour.

And Shane learns for the first time how competitive Nicky is. Because he’s flying and blocking the shoots like this is the actual freaking Premier League. Like his life depends on this. Shane’s almost out of breath by the time he runs around and shoots for the seventh. He’s lost the game already. But Nicky looks like he could do this all day.

He gets one out of ten in.

Bloody _one_.

Nicky woops and punches the air then dribbles the ball back towards him. He sticks out a hand. “Fair game,” he says.

“Was it though?” Shane huffs out with a shriek of a laugh. “You almost made it to the Premier League! And you used to be a PE teacher. I was just a country boy. That’s hardly a _fair game_.”

“You shouldn’t have agreed to the game then,” Nicky snickers and holds Shane’s hand, forces him to a shake. “Hey, did you know there’s a perfectly green patch of grass right over there?” Nicky points when he spots it and groans. “We played on fuckin’ dirt!”

“It’s more authentic this way,” Shane shrugs and stands up straight when he finally catches his breath. God, he hadn’t run around like that in at least twenty years.

“So you knew about it the whole time and still let me play on here? We could have gotten hurt, you know.” Nicky rolls his eyes with a grin and secures the ball in one arm. He holds his other hand out. “Come on.”

Shane looks at the open palm, then feels the corners of his lips reach points of his face that they hadn’t before, an impossibly strong beat in his chest. He grabs the hand and gets led to the grass area.

Nicky lies down on the grass and he squints at the sunlight that attacks his eyes. “Fuck,” Nicky barks as he covers the glare with one arm. He shuffles to a spot that’s not in direct sunlight.

“Idiot,” Shane laughs and lies down beside the man, head resting on Nicky’s arm.

They look up together towards the sky - the spots of blue in between the canvas of green leaves.

The whistling wind is like music; a gentle ballad. Acoustic guitars plucking to the beat of those swaying trees, piano keys making the grass slow dance underneath them.

“This is nice,” Nicky croons.

“It really is,” Shane agrees.

Nicky never knew something so simple like this would teach him the meaning of happiness. Something that he would have deemed boring, just lying down on grass doing nothing, looking at the sky that he never understood when people said it’s beautiful. But it truly is beautiful. He sees that now.

And what’s even more beautiful is having someone else’s rhythm of breath to follow, having someone else’s hair tickling his arm as much as the grass did, looking up at nature that he can slow down and be himself with. He supposes this right here is what happiness is.

It always seemed unreachable, that concept. Something that he could never touch like those clouds up there. But he curls his arm around Shane’s shoulder and holds a hand that comes up to meet his, and it _is_ reachable. He’s just touched it.

“Thanks for this. It was a good distraction.”

“Was that all it was? A distraction?”

“No,” Shane admits after a hesitant pause. “It was… I don’t know.”

Nicky rolls onto his stomach and props himself up on his elbows. When he looks up at Shane, those eyes flicker away almost instantly.

Shane looks a little nervous, pink lips wiggling as he fiddles with a leaf that he’d picked up.

“Can I kiss you?” Nicky asks.

Shane freezes for a second, but the gentle sound of Nicky’s breath mixed with the wind clicks in his mind, and he’s the first to close the gap between them.

When Nicky reciprocates, he feels a cool breeze travel into his clothes, then flow out of him when Nicky’s hand caresses his jaw, lips tenderly hugging each other.

Shane ignores the twigs sticking into his back when he shifts a little, curving up towards Nicky and deepening the kiss. He places his hand on the back of Nicky’s neck to bring him in closer. Closer. He wants him closer.

Nicky pulls back from the kiss for a bit, and Shane wants him back immediately.

But when those soft velvet lips kiss his cheek, down his jaw, down his neck, Shane wants time to stop. Shane wants the world to stop turning to comprehend this heavenly sensation. He feels like he deserves some extra time. Just to do this. Just to feel this.

“You can tell me to stop if you want,” Nicky says in between sucking on the thin skin of Shane’s neck. He hooks his thumb over Shane’s jeans, waiting with care.

“Don’t,” Shane pants.

“Don’t?” Nicky takes his hand away immediately. Shane appreciates him being considerate, but if Nicky doesn’t touch him soon, he may kill him.

“I meant don’t stop.” He grabs Nicky’s hand and brings it back down. Doesn’t miss that sneaky smirk just before Nicky dips his head again into the crook of Shane’s neck – the other side this time.

That thumb flicks open the button of his pants. Slides the zipper down. His hand slides down his pants for the first time, massaging his pulsating flesh over boxer shorts that are slowly becoming wet.

Shane’s hand reaches down too and those small hands lift out Nicky’s cock that was about to tear his boxers apart. Nicky gasps a little when those hands start stroking him. And Shane’s good. So goddamn good with the occasional twist of his wrist at the right places, and Nicky forgets what breathing is.

“Got a condom by any chance?” he pants.

Shane shakes his head.

“Me neither. Shit.” The hand on Nicky stops for a bit. He really really needs it to move again. “Look, you can say no, but I get tested regularly. I’m clean if…”

“Me too. Um.” The hand does one stroke then stops again, wanting but timid. Nicky moans underneath his breath.

“Do you bottom?” Nicky asks. When Shane nods, Nicky bites down on a smirk. “Perfect.”

Nicky curls his arm around Shane’s back then flips him over. Shane yelps. He doesn’t know how that strength is built in those skinny arms, but fuck, he’s aroused. He adjusts his pants down so they’re pooled around his knees and gets himself up on all fours. His own cock is hard, and he doesn’t fancy getting it chafed by rough patches of grass.

Slender fingers caress his butt cheeks before prying them apart. Shane remembers he didn’t shave. He wasn’t exactly expecting to have sex with someone in these five days. And certainly not in the woods.

He shivers when Nicky spits in between. And again. “Tell me if it hurts,” Nicky says so kindly before spitting on his own fingers as well and with caution, one finger pushes past his hole.

Shane gasps at the entrance that he hadn’t felt stretch in a while, and god, he missed this. He missed this more than he could say.

He hears Nicky spit in his other hand and jerk himself off while the finger inside him cleverly crooks. He missed this. He _needed_ this.

“Please…” Shane whimpers and pushes back on Nicky’s touch. Slowly, another finger enters him, prodding just the right places like they’d done this before, like Nicky already knows him too well, and Shane chokes on a cry when they’re pumping in and out of him.

When fingers stretch him out enough and hit his prostate, Shane almost loses his balance on his hands. His arms feel so weak, like they could break the moment Nicky starts properly fucking him.

But Nicky doesn’t give him time to think. He takes his fingers out and spits in his crack again. Shane can feel the liquid slither down his sensitive puckering hole. Can feel that this emptiness will drive him crazy if something doesn’t happen soon. Even crazier than he is now, bent over in the middle of the forest where anyone could stumble upon them at any second.

Something about that thrill sets fire to his spine.

And that fire spreads further when Nicky slowly pushes his cock inside him, a hard tip that stretches and stretches and _stretches_ him, and Shane cries out in the pain.

In the torturous, absolutely delicious pain.

“Too much?” Nicky stops halfway and checks in.

“No. Keep going,” Shane feels the vessels in his eyes may pop, but he insists anyway. He needs this more than he needs anything else in the world.

Nicky listens and pushes himself in further. When he’s in to his absolute brim, a tornado of a moan swirls in the back of his throat as he leans forward, peppering kisses over the dirt-stained t-shirt that Shane’s still wearing.

“You’re so good,” he whispers and presses another soft kiss to his shoulder blade. Shane shiver against his touch, and it makes him smirk. “So fucking good for me.”

“Yes…” Shane hisses and shifts to further adjust himself. “Fuck me. Please,” he whimpers through a clumped throat.

“Like this?” Nicky teases. He pulls back and thrusts back in. Hard. Shane jerks forward.

“_Fuck _yes,” he hisses again right before a gasp that does nothing to put out the fire in his stomach.

Nicky begins to find a rhythm, and Shane grunts into the open, fingers digging into the grass, tearing up the green.

Nicky’s grip on his waist is tight. Shane’s sure he’ll wake up with bruises tomorrow, purple spots that will settle into his skin through his shirt and through his skin, all the way through to his veins and to the centre of his bones.

Shane feels his wrists might snap with every beat of Nicky hammering into it, just as easily as the grass snapping from underneath his desperate grip.

“I’m close, I need-“ Shane cuts himself off with a rough grunt as Nicky reaches down to jerk him off. Nicky’s hand works at an irregular pattern, an almost violent rush that’s eviscerating to his core, and with a growl, he shoots onto the grass beneath him.

Shane wheezes through heavy breaths while Nicky still rocks in and out of him mercilessly, and he looks over his shoulder. A content smile that flicks up the corner of his lips as he sways with the motion.

They meet each other’s eyes. This religious experience - an unspeakable force that pulls their colours together.

Nicky marvels at the delicacy of Shane’s side profile, of the way his eyes are burning holes into his chest, the way those lips part allowing his obscene voice to escape into the tall trees and beyond.

Being so close to the edge, Nicky meant to pull out, but he can’t hold it in any longer. He comes as he tried to shuffle back. A howl vibrates from the back of his throat as he leans on Shane’s back for register. “Fuck…” he breathes through his chest heaving and wipes his hand on the grass.

Then he realises he’d just come all over Shane’s pants that was dangling around those knees.

“What?” Shane looks back and asks when Nicky mumbles an _oh_.

“I um.” He lets out an awkward chuckle and points. “I think I may have ruined your pants? Sorry.”

“Wha-“ Shane sits up, his lower back aching a little. Yep. They’re ruined for sure. “Jesus, Nick,” he laughs and tries to wipe the viscous liquid off with surrounding leaves. It helps a tiny bit. Not really. “Whatever,” he pulls them back on. It’s not like he has another choice. “Nice and wet. Cheers for that.”

“Sorry.” Nicky doesn’t look sorry at all with that goofy grin. Shane rolls his eyes.

He shifts aside a little, avoiding the patch covered in their mixed fluids, and lies down on the grass. He stretches his wrists that are surely broken. Worth it though.

“Fuck, that was good,” Shane chuckles through his breath that’s still a bit strained.

“Very,” Nicky pulls his pants back up as well and lies down beside him, playing with the messy hat of hair on top of Shane’s dazed but brightly lit eyes. “Was having sex in the forest on your bucket list at all?”

Shane laughs. “No, but I’ll definitely add it just to cross it off.”

“Sweet,” Nicky closes his eyes and gathers his breath back to normal. Shane does too, and they follow each other’s calming rhythm, a soft breeze taking away the heat in their cheeks, filling the silence that’s louder that the trees whistling.

“I’m glad you came to Sligo with us,” Shane says after a while.

Nicky hears the grass whisper as Shane shifts, and when he opens his eyes, Shane’s propped up on his elbow, looking down at him with a smile that makes Nicky forget about the world. Because who needs the world when he’s got this? He smiles back and leans up for a quick kiss.

“Me too,” he croons and caresses Shane’s jawline. “So are you ready for that tattoo?”

“Urgh. Jesus, are we actually doing that?”

***

Yep, they are actually doing that.

They sit side by side in the waiting area of the tattoo parlour. Shane had never been too fond of needles as much as the next person. Getting a tattoo was something that had never even crossed his mind. It definitely wasn’t on his bucket list. His palms are sweating.

“Why am I even here? I hate you.” Shane nudges Nicky’s knee.

“And I love you,” Nicky laughs. But Shane looks up at him with wriggling eyebrows. Eyelids lifted in surprise. Oh. “Um I- I don’t… Sorry. That just came out. Ignore me.”

Red inks Shane’s cheeks, and Shane’s eyes wander around the parlour for a bit. “Nicky, I-“

Shane’s cut off by the tattoo artist.

Nicky yearns to hear whatever Shane was about to say, but then he gets dragged away to the chair, and he follows with an irregular heartbeat.

The artist asks Shane questions about the tattoo. She shows him some fonts, then asks what he wants.

“Um. NB, please.”

Nicky notices Shane trying to not look at him. God, this was just supposed to be dumb and fun.

“For non-binary?” She puts on her gloves and takes out the needle from a fresh packet. He can’t believe he’s here. Doing this. Jesus _Christ_.

“No. For um…” Shane hesitates, then looks up at Nicky. A timid smile flashes against those lips, and Nicky feels a little more at ease. “It’s someone’s name. Someone special,” Shane says.

Before Nicky can unpack that in his mind, the artist asks Shane to stay still. Shane tenses a little when she begins.

***

The car ride back to Shane’s house was uncomfortable to say the least.

Not a word was shared. Other than Nicky asking if it hurts, and Shane shrugging through an “it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be”, only the radio had filled the void. Unsuccessfully, at that.

Shane heads into the shower as soon as they get home, said he wanted to wash the dirt off from the forest.

Nicky had said okay and waited in the living room, chewing his bottom lip. The words still linger there – the three words that he hadn’t meant to say. That had jumped up from the core of his stomach and didn’t know how to eat back up. But when Shane comes out of the shower eventually, hair messy and in new clean clothes, his bottom lip’s itchy again.

“Um. I’m going to have a cup of tea if you want one?” Shane stands there with an awkward half-smile, and Nicky shifts in his seat.

“Y-yeah. Thanks.”

Shane disappears into the kitchen. Nicky’s lips are still itching.

He follows him in.

“Shane, can we talk?”

Shane licks his dry lips, eyes not knowing exactly where to look, but he nods anyway.

“About what I said earlier, uh…” Maybe Nicky’s nervous too. Probably. Definitely. He leans on the kitchen countertop with one hand and watches as Shane paces around. He’s trying to organise cups of tea, but god, it’s making Nicky even more nervous. He grabs Shane’s arm. Gets a surprised look back. “Just stop for a sec and listen. Please.”

Shane nods again, leaning on the countertop as well with a bit of distance between them. “Sorry. Go on.”

“What did you mean when you said ‘someone special’?” It had been scratching at Nicky’s brain for the entire car ride, and he couldn’t find the courage to ask. But he needs to know more than anything. Someone special. He wants to be someone special.

“I don’t know,” Shane fiddles with his fingers and looks down at them to avoid eye contact.

“Tell me. Please.” Nicky feels like he might cry soon. A lump rises in his throat, but he swallows it back with every might he can gather.

Shane’s still not looking at him. Those fingers are still twirling around each other as much as the words that look trapped right behind the rim of Shane’s uneasy lips.

The silence strangles Nicky, and he really can’t take it anymore. He decides to speak instead.

“These past two days have been… insane. Honestly.” He lets out a shaky laugh. Shane smirks, but it quickly falters away. “And I don’t know how you think about it all but I… it’s been good for me. Really good. Um.”

Nicky feels his heartbeat fasten ridiculously. God, he had never done this before. Had never cared enough about anything to do this.

“I know we only met yesterday but… Look, I’ve never felt this alive before. I never knew I, _I_, could feel this way. Ever. And I think you’re the main reason.” Nicky takes a step closer, his fingers brushing against Shane’s hand that’s on the counter. Then he looks into Shane’s eyes that soften and he whispers, “Is it crazy that I’m falling in love with you?”

Shane freezes for a bit, but he finally looks up. And Nicky can’t read that look in his stunned eyes. Maybe those eyes don’t see the same things he does. Nicky feels a little broken. He takes his hand away.

“I… I’m sorry. Forget I said that. You-“

Before Nicky can even blink, Shane cuts him off with a kiss. An uncertain, rushed, strong, almost vicious kiss that leaves Nicky’s lips numb. Nicky almost stumbles back, but he straightens himself quickly when Shane’s hand is steadied on his waist. He slides his hand to Shane’s nape and pulls him in. Electric tickles his toes all the way up to the tips of his hair.

Shane pulls back, making a wet sound when he does. Nicky’s hands are still on him. Shane’s are still around his lean waist.

Suffocating, Nicky waits for Shane to say something. His throat closes up as Shane looks down at his feet, then looks up again with eyes that Nicky can read this time.

He really does feel more alive than he ever had.

“I guess we’re both fucking crazy.”

“What?” Nicky doesn’t understand how this is happening, but it is. He feels like he’s swept up in a chaotic tornado.

“Just kiss me,” Shane leans on the fridge behind him and pulls Nicky towards him by grabbing his shirt collar.

A loud thud echoes through the house when Nicky digs the heel of his palm into the fridge, bracing himself. For a single sense of himself in this burning intensity that kills his mind.

“I think I’m in love with you too.” Shane whispers with the half a breath he has left in him.

Nicky looks like he’s about to cry, a light layer of tears in those intensely beautiful eyes.

Shane can’t help but be mesmerised. But to stare. He loves the way Nicky looks at him. He loves his own reflection in those bright blues. It’s so insane to think that he’d never looked into these eyes before yesterday, because right now, all he wants is to be the only thing those eyes reflect.

“We really are crazy,” Nicky jokes, then leans in for another kiss.


	4. Day Three

**_1_**.

“Wow,” Kian breathes out. He looks at the clock on his phone. 12:00 AM. “Time really doesn’t wait for you, does it?”

Kian looks back at his hand. At that offensively bright **_1_**.

He doesn’t even cry. He’s surprisingly calm, appreciating every breath of oxygen filling up his organs, not knowing which one is going to be the last one. His heart doesn’t break for himself. He had been preparing for this for so long.

What his heart really breaks for is Mark.

He looks up and caresses Mark’s jaw with his other hand, not for a second looking away from those eyes that had kept him going for so long. That had been the only reason he was sane through everything, through watching his numbers decline. The only reason he had felt life in every breath and bloodstream as if his numbers were increasing instead.

Mark.

“How are you feeling, love?” Kian asks.

“How am _I _feeling? You’re the one who… I should be the one asking that.” Mark’s voice is already shaking. Kian tries to hear past that. “Let’s just… let’s not talk about it.”

“Okay. What would you like to talk about?”

“How tomorrow, we… we’re going to wake up. Together. I’m going to wake up next to you.”

Mark doesn’t find the strength to look into Kian’s eyes. He looks into his own imagination instead, hoping to find an answer to a question that he doesn’t know.

“Tomorrow. We can go down to the beach again. You can chase away birds for me. I can… I can pack some sandwiches. Some drinks. We can invite Shane. I’ll even pack some pastrami sandwiches just for him. We can go for a swim all together. We- Um.” Mark almost looks hysterical, but Kian doesn’t stop him. “What would you like to do tomorrow?”

Kian lets the question hang. He sweeps his thumb underneath those hollow eyes then brings his hand down to hold Mark’s. “You know what I’d really like tomorrow?”

Mark still doesn’t look up at him. “What?”

“I’d really like for you to grieve for however long you need to, then move on from me eventually.”

Mark reddens like he’s been slapped in the face. His eye twitches, and with that, Mark finally looks up, offended. “Excuse me?”

“Marky…” Kian sighs. For the first time today, he wants to cry. “You’re not even halfway through your life, darling.” Kian flips Mark’s right hand up, brushes his fingers over the number that’s larger than whatever was on Kian’s the moment he was born. “I need to know that you’ll be happy. With or without me.”

“Of course I won’t be happy without you. Are you kidding me? You can’t just-“

“Calm down and _listen _to me. Please.” Kian doesn’t have the energy to fight. Nor does he have the time. “If I look onto you from whatever the fuck happens after this, and I see you crying all the time, I just… I can’t see that, Mark. I want you to fall in love again. Do all those wonderful things you love again.

“Just… think of me as one chapter in your book. Just one part of it. A part that was in the past, that you loved and can remember the good things about and smile about years down the line. You can tell your future partner and your kids and grandkids about this amazing man you used to know called Kian,” Kian chuckles and wipes his runny nose with his sleeves, “and you can tell them all about this incredible journey you’ve had with him. All the wonderful stories of the dumb things we’ve done together. Like when we tried to trick Shane that he was getting bald spots. Remember that?”

Mark snickers at that, only after a big sniffle that hits his brain. “He believed it for months.”

“Yeah. And he has the most hair out of all of us. He’s a fuckin’ eejit.”

Kian laughs and loves the way Mark does too, even if it only lasts a few seconds.

“You can tell them how much it hurt. But also how much you loved. How this Kian lad spent his entire life loving you. Because I’ve never loved anyone as much as I loved you. You were there with me every step of the way,” Kian holds Mark’s eyes in his own, “and I want to be there every step of the way for you from tomorrow onwards. That’s why I need you to move on. Because I’ll be there. Always. I promise.

“I’ll be there in the sunrise to greet you every day. I’ll be there in the rain. In the leaves that fall during Autumn. I’ll be there in the first snow. In the trees you walk past when you go to work. I’ll even be there in those ridiculous antique shops you love so much.”

“You love them too,” Mark murmurs through a clumped throat that he doesn’t know when it will go easy again.

“Honestly, I don’t. They’re always dusty and smelly. I’ve never liked them.” Kian confesses with a fond smile. Tries to widen it when Mark looks up at him. “I loved going to them with you though. To see you be all excited like a little kid. _That’s _what I loved. I loved your happiness.”

“Arsehole,” Mark brings himself to another laugh.

“Sorry,” Kian copies the heavenly sound. His favourite sound in the entire world. “And _that’s _what I want to see soon. Tomorrow, cry all you like. Remember me. Think about me. Call Shane over. Don’t be by yourself tomorrow. Please.”

Kian hates the thought of Mark crying alone in his room more than anything.

“But soon after tomorrow, I want to see you smile again. I want to see you be happy again, whatever that looks like. That’s all I want.”

Mark nods and clutches onto the hand that never left his. He doesn’t think it ever will, even after tomorrow.

“And today, let’s relax, yeah? We can have lunch with Shane. Then let’s just stay home.”

Mark nods again.

***

Shane wakes up to a jab at his arm.

When he squints his eyes open, it’s still dark.

“Urgh, Shane. Answer the thing.” Nicky croaks. Then he registers that his phone is ringing.

He groans. The clock reads 4:11 AM. “Jesus, who the fuck…” he pats around for his phone, then reads the name that appears on the screen.

“It’s Mark,” he susurrates and sits up. His stomach sinks.

“_Mark? _Why is Mark calling at 4 in the morning? It’s- Oh.” Nicky opens his eyes and slowly sits up too. “Do you think it’s um…”

Shane looks at him, moonlight washing Nicky’s face white. He shakes his head. No. It can’t be. Not yet.

Nicky shuffles forward and rests his hand on top of Shane’s. “Answer it. It’s okay.”

He takes a deep breath. Nicky subconsciously does too.

“It’s okay,” Nicky whispers again, and Shane tries to find comfort in those words. In that gentle voice.

He nods, allows himself another deep breath, and answers it.

“Hello?” He utters with a low voice.

“Shane…” Mark cries in his ear, loud like a fake movie scene. Except it hits Shane’s chest like no other. He’s never heard Mark like this. No matter how hard it had been, Mark had never sounded like this.

He doesn’t want to ask if he’s okay. No. He wants to hang up. He doesn’t want to hear what Mark has to say. Because he feels in the foreboding throb of his veins exactly what had happened. He can’t fucking _do _this.

Shane doesn’t realise he’s crying until Nicky wipes his cheek with his thumb. He holds that hand tight in his. Fixates his gaze on the wet layer on Nicky’s thumb.

“Did um…” Shane manages to squeeze out his throat. He tries to clear it. Nothing works. “Is Kian…”

But it’s only four hours into the day. Four fucking hours. He doesn’t understand. Kian didn’t even get a full final day. If there was anyone in the entire world who deserved a nice, full day, it was Kian. Not just four hours. Not Kian. Not…

They didn’t even get to have the lunch they promised they were going to have.

Shane didn’t get to say goodbye.

“Can you please come over?” Mark asks.

***

Kian was beautiful.

Shane thought, if he saw Kian’s body, that he’d break down crying. That the world would fall apart and the skies would hit them all.

But no. Kian was so beautiful when Shane had walked in. Laying there so peacefully, those closed eyes looking like they’re deep in a sunlit dream, and Shane felt at ease. It’s strange, but he did. He had leaned down to kiss his forehead, and that one kiss held every word he had ever wanted to say to Kian. Everything he had planned to say during that lunch they were going to have. Every string of love and gratitude, every hug he had ever wanted to give him, it was all wrapped and gifted in that one kiss.

Shane felt at ease.

The mortuary transporter came not long after. Nicky had offered to make the call.

The moment Kian left the house, Mark’s knees had given out. His heart had given out. The tears he had been holding back had given out. The world had fallen apart for him the moment that door closed. Shane led him to the couch in the living room and held him.

Mark doesn’t sound like he’ll stop any time soon. And that’s okay.

Shane doesn’t know if there’s anything he could say or do to console Mark. He’ll be gone soon too. And Mark will be left alone, losing his boyfriend and friend just two days apart. Shane wants to do something for him. But he doesn’t know if he can, and all he can offer is to sit here, to be here for him. He just hopes it’s enough, despite it all.

Shane waits silently, drawing slow circles on Mark’s trembling back, finding a sense of solace for himself in Nicky’s hand that’s on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, love,” Shane whispers with a kiss in Mark’s hair. “I’m so sorry.”

Mark nods in Shane’s shoulder, breath hitching irregularly.

He lets Mark cry. And cry and cry and cry. He doesn’t tell him to stop.

Shane doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there hugging his friend for. How long Nicky has been there behind them with silent support. By the time the sobs subside, the Sun had risen, washing over the room with a warm orange glow.

“Sorry,” Mark sounds calmer as he pulls back and wipes his cheeks.

“You have nothing to be sorry about. It’s okay.” Shane offers him a smile and gets a little one back. He’s glad. “Can I… ask how it happened?” Shane doesn’t want to know, but he also has to know.

“He kept saying he was tired.” Mark wipes his nose with his sleeve. “I tried to keep him awake, but he kept saying he just needed a small nap. Just a short one. And that I could wake him up in half an hour and then he’d make me scrambled eggs for breakfast. And um,” Mark’s voice wavers again. He tried to calm it with a deep breath. “Yeah. That… that was it. He fell asleep. He didn’t wake up again. I tried, Shay. I tried so _fucking _hard but…”

“It’s okay,” Shane hugs him again. “It’s not your fault. It never will be.”

Mark tries to swallow back another set of tears. He rests his aching head on Shane’s shoulder and closes his eyes. Tries to remember the things Kian had said to him. _I want to see you laugh again. I want to see you be happy again._ Mark doesn’t know what happiness is anymore. But he tries to hear Kian’s voice. He wants to make Kian happy, wherever he’s looking on from right now.

He doesn’t know if he can yet. Or for a long time.

“I knew this day would come but it’s still...”

“Knowing about it doesn’t make it any easier,” Shane coos, and Mark nods. He pulls back from the hug and runs his fingers through Mark’s hair and lets it tilt nicely. “Tell me what I can do for you. Anything at all.”

Nicky hums in agreement, and Mark looks up at them with a weary smile. Those blue eyes are still filled to its absolute brim with tears just waiting to fall, like if anyone even touches him with their fingernail, he would break down.

“I don’t know if there’s anything anyone can do,” Mark answers honestly, then lets out a trembling breath. “Just… tell me a story, maybe. A nice one.”

“A nice Kian one?”

Mark nods.

Nicky looks to Shane. He obviously doesn’t have any nice Kian stories; just the time Kian had looked like he’d wanted to punch Nicky at that support group two days ago. Or when he’d invited Nicky, a total stranger, to this distant county. Though, that actually was a nice Kian story. The best thing to have happened for him in what would have been the loneliest withering.

He looks at Shane and wants to thank Kian for all that Shane is. For all that love is. For all that the last part of his life became.

Shane searches for a story, sucking on his bottom lip, hand never leaving Mark’s. “Oh, did he ever tell you how we actually met for the first time?”

“Something about you two bonding over this?” Mark gestures at the numbers on his palm.

“Yeah,” Shane smiles at the warmth of the memory blessing the room. Like Kian’s in here right now with them, smiling at the identical memory.

“It was my first day of high school. Some lad wanted to be my friend so we were talking, getting along, then he saw my palm.” Shane scoffs bitterly and looks down, scrapes his fingernails over the numbers. “He basically told the whole school. That I was going to die early. Apparently, to some people, that means not worth getting to know at all. Apparently it means you can treat them like shit. Because they’re going to die early anyways.”

Nicky wants to hold that hand so bad. Wants to clasp their numbers together and double it somehow. But he wants to be respectful towards Mark. And Kian. He crosses his arms instead and hugs himself through the teary voice of Shane’s as this story unfolds.

“I wore gloves to school everyday after that. Which didn’t really do anything. Everyone knew anyway. No one even wanted to look at me. But I still wore them, even in Summer. I would get heat rashes on my hands but I still wore them.”

Shane flips his hand around to look at the top of it, at the spots where he used to scratch so much and had picked at the rashes until they bled every night.

“I always sat by myself at lunch, but one day, this small blond boy came up to me. He asked if I was Shane Filan, then asked if he could see my hand. I thought it was a fuckin’ piss-take, you know? Like some sort of zoo viewing show. When I said no, he showed me his own palm first. The number was even lower than mine. He had this really sweet, encouraging smile that made me feel like I wasn’t alone anymore. Like I’d be okay. Like...”

He hears Mark start to sob again beside him and tries to hold in his own. Because if there is one person hurting the most in this coffin of a room, it’s Mark. And today will probably be the last time Mark sees him too. Shane wants to be supportive. He wants to be the shoulder to lean on, because he won’t get to be that again.

So he doesn’t want to cry. For Mark, he tries not to cry.

His throat cripples from holding back his cries, but he still smiles. Because he remembers how beautiful that boy was. How kind and thoughtful and loving that small boy was. How it was the first time Shane had learnt to trust somebody, to let somebody else trust him. And Kian will forever be that boy for him, even long after the light in his palm goes out.

“I just loved him, you know? We all did.” Shane chokes on a sob, then pushes a chuckle through it. For Mark. He takes a deep breath to even himself out. And another one. “Do you want me to stay for the day?”

Mark hesitates, his lips wriggling. “But you have so little time. I don’t want to-“

“I’m here for you.” Shane stops him. Mark looks relieved. “You’re important to me too, Mark. I want to spend the day with you.”

Mark gives in and slouches over for a hug. “Thank you,” he whimpers.

They stay like that for a while, and Nicky watches from the side, as Shane closes his eyes in the embrace, as Mark trembles through another sob that surfaces. Nicky feels like it isn’t his place to watch any longer.

“I’ll let you two have some time.” Nicky gets up from the couch and receives an apologetic but grateful smile from Shane.

“You can stay if you like,” Mark offers.

“No, I’ll be alright. Please. Spend the day together.” Nicky puts his jacket on and digs Shane’s for the car keys. “I’ll come and pick you up later. Just text me, yeah?”

Shane nods and kisses Nicky’s cheek.

Nicky kisses back, then looks at Mark. “And I’m sorry for your loss. I know that’s not helping, and I know we barely know each other but I just… I’m really sorry.”

Mark thanks him, and Nicky steps outside to give them the day to themselves.

He would be lying if he said he hadn’t been looking forward to another day with Shane, but he knows he has to step back today. And besides, it could be nice, spending a day for himself. Looking around town.

He climbs in Shane’s car and turns the radio loud on the drive back.

***

It’s the afternoon when Nicky wakes up from his nap. He’d barely gotten any sleep squeezed in last night. He does a lazy stretch and takes out his phone. He thinks about texting Shane to see how things were going, but decides to leave it.

He opens his phone gallery instead and on the top is the photo that he’d taken with Shane in Hazelwood yesterday.

Zooming in on Shane’s gleaming smile, a chuckle echoes through Nicky’s chest. This photo feels like ages ago. It feels like he’d known this smile for years, like he could close his eyes and draw it without a single error.

Like his heart would glow every time he thought about it, as if he’d spent his entire life doing that.

He zooms back out and opens Instagram to upload this photo. He wants someone to see how beautiful Shane is. How beautiful his life is at the moment. Anyone. The photo’s too precious only to stay in his phone that will probably be trashed anyway. It’s not like he has someone to pass it onto as some sort of grand heirloom.

Maybe he should ask Shane first before uploading.

As his finger hovers over the ‘post’ button, he wonders if Shane has Instagram. He goes to the search bar instead, but stops for a second. Maybe this is creepy. Maybe this, he really should ask first.

He types the letters in anyway. Shane’s profile isn’t hard to find. He smirks and clicks on it. This is okay. It’s not creepy. Probably.

Most of the posts are selfies from bad angles that do nothing for that gorgeous face, that look like they were taken by an eighty-year-old who had just found out what a front camera was. Nicky breaks out into laughter as he scrolls through. It’s too cute not to.

He clicks on a post of Shane and Kian in Europe from just three months ago. **#forlife**, the caption reads with a heart emoji. Shane is kissing Kian’s cheek, and Kian has a wide, silly grin with his tongue sticking out. A comment asks if they’re dating where Kian so elegantly had replied “fuck off” to. Nicky smirks, then looks back at the pleasant photo.

He wonders what it would have been like if he’d met Shane ten years ago. Or even just one year. Six months. To have gotten to know the man much better. To have been there in all these posts, these moments of his precious life, to have told him that _no_, that is _not_ how you take a bloody selfie, Shane Filan.

Maybe they wouldn’t have had to rush falling in love at all. They would take their time and properly figure out what love even is. They would have waited and seen where life would have taken them, the whirlwind of destiny that it would have tossed them into.

All the Christmases they would have shared. Birthdays. Valentine’s Days that Nicky always thought was stupid, but it would have been nice. Maybe they would have even had fights like other relationships do, and come back crying to each other. Grow up together. And to have gotten to know both Kian and Mark well enough to call them his friends would have been a dream too.

The thought of this alternate life makes Nicky smile.

Maybe he would have been happier for much longer than just five days.

He clicks out of it and onto his own profile. It’s been a year since he had posted anything, he realises.

He goes back to posting and picks the photo of him and Shane in Hazelwood again. He doesn’t know what to put in the caption. Too many words come to his mind, none of them successfully capturing the emotions filling up his chest.

**Love.**, he types then deletes.

He types a few emojis, but they feel too light. Delete. Maybe just a simple **Hazelwood**. He deletes that too.

He decides to upload it without a caption. It feels oddly relieving.

He puts his phone back in his pocket and hops out of bed to get dressed.

There’s no precise plan for today. He doesn’t know where he’s headed at all. But he heads out the door anyway with light footsteps.

Nicky had never really enjoyed time to himself. He’d spent too much time doing that in the past, living by himself after his grandmother died, not really finding the courage to open up to new people for a long time. For too long. Nicky realises that now.

And when he was finally ready to open up a little bit more, he hadn’t known where to start.

But today, it feels different. It feels better. _He _feels better.

He spends most of the day wandering around town. The weather is perfect too, like Kian is gifting the world with a day of divine sunlight. Probably for Mark, but Nicky wants to thank him anyway as he bathes in the warmth during a nice stroll.

He takes himself out for a late lunch at a diner a little far from Shane’s house. The elder waitress had asked where he was from, and the moment he said Dublin, she had given him an entire history guide of this street. There wasn’t much to it - just the different shops that used to be around, the wonderful families that she had gotten to know through many many decades. None of it had anything to do with him, but he loved listening to her. She had even given him a free plate of chips. She reminded him of his grandmother. That loud, confident laughter and sweet heart that felt like home.

He used to think the countryside was tacky. But he’d much rather have lived here, in the sense of innocence and kindness and togetherness that you don’t get much in the city. At least not for him.

He’s actually appreciating new people for the first time in a long time. The human touch. Connections. Relations. Meaning. He didn’t realise how much he craved it during all those years he shut himself off.

Loss does that to you. And Nicky had no one by his side to guide him through his loss. Someone kind and caring to tell him that it’s okay. That he’ll be okay. That he is and will be loved.

He wants to be the one guiding Shane through his loss. The person Nicky needed when he was younger - he wants to _be _that person.

After lunch, he decides to run home. He wants to be ready to pick Shane up as soon as he gets that text, whenever that may be. He wants to be there for him. Always.

It’s half past nine by the time Shane texts him.

**Hey, can u pick me up please? Whenever ur ready. No rush.**

Nicky jumps up and heads out to the car right away. There are restrained skips in his steps as he texts back.

**Coming now x**

***

“Want some of that whiskey from your dad’s cabinet?” Nicky offers when they get back to Shane’s house.

“Yes please.” Shane collapses on the couch, all the energy in the world leaving his muscles. “Fuckin’ hell, I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.”

Nicky makes and passes him the drink and sits close, right beside him. “How was it?”

“Hard. Mark cried all day. I tried not to,” Shane takes a sip of the whiskey and closes his eyes through the calming burn down his throat. “But it was still nice. We haven’t done that in a while; just the two of us hanging out. He asked about you as well. Asked why we suddenly looked so close. Apparently they both expected that I’d kick you out within three days.”

Nicky lets out a careful laugh. “What did you say?”

“That I fell in love. That _we _fell in love.”

Shane’s voice is so fond and soft like a lullaby, and light runs through Nicky’s heart. He leans in to press a kiss into Shane’s cheek that swells up with a small smile.

“Thank you for coming with me this morning. I… I wouldn’t have been able to do that on my own.”

“I barely did anything but sit there.”

“And that’s all I needed,” Shane reaches out to hold his hand. There isn’t a second that Nicky hesitates before wrapping his fingers around them.

“Love you,” Nicky lilts.

“Love you,” Shane lilts back, and he can’t believe that they’re here three days on. It’s feels like the first time he’d heard those words all over again, a pressure in his chest that’s almost overwhelming, and it’s probably the biggest gift the universe could have given him on his way out. “Love you,” Shane whispers again, even for himself.

“I’m really sorry.” Nicky shuffles closer, the sides of their thighs mould into one. “It’s never easy, losing someone, let alone someone like Kian.”

Shane nods and looks at the drink in his hand. His forehead wrinkles through thoughts, and Nicky waits patiently.

“It doesn’t feel real,” Shane confesses. He downs the drink and puts the glass on the table. The whiskey aches his throat. “Like… this morning, when I was telling that story of how we met, and we talked about him all day but… it felt so weird, you know? Addressing him as the past like that. It doesn’t feel right.”

Nicky hums sympathetically.

The moment someone becomes the past. That second one of the best things of someone’s life becomes a memory and nothing more. Intangible. A face that you can only see through framed pictures and screens. Their words of kindness only left in letters and texts. And the remaining lives that move on, the planet that keeps turning, but not without an irreversible emptiness.

It’s a matter of learning to live with them as a memory, rather than without them.

A memory.

A history.

A past.

And in Shane’s case, a close future.

“You know what Kian and I promised? Or what Kian made me promise,” Shane smirks. Kian was bossy like that. Bossy in the best way - in the way that pushed him to be a better, kinder, stronger person. Kian was that for him. “He made me promise that I won’t spend too much time mourning. Because when he’s gone, it means I’ll only have two days left, and he said those two days are too precious. That um…”

Nicky’s hand on his shoulder shifts, a soft hand rubbing his upper arm and spreading comfort in the breath that he’d been holding onto ever since he’d gotten Mark’s phone call at four in the morning. The weight of the moment floods into his mind, into his heart, into his eyes that are properly seeing a world without Kian for the first time.

Tears fill the brim of Shane’s vision.

“He said that we’d meet again straight after those two days anyway. So there’s no point wasting time mourning when I could be doing something else.”

“You’re allowed to mourn, love.” Nicky croons and presses a kiss to Shane’s temple. Gives him another one when he feels Shane tilt in towards the gentle touch. “I know it feels like you have to do everything in these last few days and have no time to spare, but you’re allowed to slow down for a bit. It’s okay to take time to process it all. I think that’s still living life to the fullest - just taking a moment for yourself.”

Shane looks down at his hands that are clasped on his lap. He brings it up to grab the one that’s on his arm, and Nicky squeezes back like a reflex.

“Please,” Nicky whispers. “Slow down for a bit. I promise it’s okay.”

Shane purses his lips for a quiet while, then feels his muscles loosen when Nicky whispers another gentle ‘please’. He feels utterly weak, deprived of the world’s energy, and lays his head down on Nicky’s shoulder.

“Can I have a hug?”

Nicky doesn’t wait half a second before draping his arms around the man.

Shane closes his eyes in the crook of Nicky’s neck and breathes. He breathes. He breathes in the air of this world that has blessed him with so much, yet so less. He breathes in the scent of Nicky that he can’t remember a life without. He breathes in the skin of his own body that he’s so grateful for.

And with all these blessings, all these deprivations, all he wants is to be more intensely alive. And maybe Nicky’s right. Maybe that _does _mean slowing down. To recognise every breath cleansing him. Take note of every flower he walks past on the streets. Appreciate every second of Nicky’s touch. Memorise every kiss.

Because Kian’s gone, and in two days when they meet again, Shane wants to tell him all about it. He wants to be able to look Kian in the eye and say in all honesty:

_We really lived good lives._

_We really lived life to the fullest._

Until they meet again soon, Shane really wants to _live_.


	5. Day Four

When Shane had imagined what his last five days would look like, it certainly hadn’t been this.

But he listens to Nicky. He’s slowing down. As he lays here in bed, greeting the morning Sun, in the arms of the man that he’d fallen ridiculously in love with, he’s slowing down. He’s taking some time.

“Did I ever tell you how pretty you are?” Nicky asks, fingers tracing the faint edges of his wrinkles.

Shane feels himself blush a little. He follows the path of Nicky’s fingers with his heart. “No. Tell me.”

“Well, first of all, you have a lot of hair so I’m jealous of that.” Nicky gestures at his own hairline that had receded a little as the years went by. Shane chuckles, those eyes dancing into sweet curves.

“You’re just an old grandpa.”

“Oi, you’re only one year younger than me!”

“But you’re in your forties! I’m still in my thirties. It’s a big difference, grandpa.”

“Shut up.” Nicky then moves his fingers down a little and rubs his thumb around the outer corners of Shane’s eyes. “And your eyes. I love your eyes the most.”

“Yeah?” Shane smiles again. Those curves get deeper in precious wrinkles. Nicky really is in love.

“Yeah. Your eyes remind me of the Sun. That moment when dusk meets dawn, that morning twilight when the world is waking up. Your eyes remind me of that.”

Shane’s brown eyes shine even brighter than the previous days, and they definitely hold the energy of the Sun. Nicky could look at them all day and still never get sick of them.

“And these,” Nicky’s thumb trails down to Shane’s pink lips. “God, I love these.”

The flesh swells underneath his skin as Shane giggles shy, and he can’t resist kissing them. He has no power over them.

A few soft exchanges, then Nicky moves to kiss his blushing cheek. Down to his jaw. His neck. And with the sweet melody of a moan stringing out, he travels further. His shoulder blade. The curve connecting to his arm. The ‘NB’ tattoo, which makes Nicky chuckle.

“I still can’t believe you got the tattoo.”

“You’re the one who made me get it!” Shane screeches through a laugh and shoves Nicky back. “Honestly though, it’s nice. I quite like it.” He brushes his fingers over the two letters that will stick with him forever, even if it had just been a dumb bet.

“I like it too,” Nicky kisses it again and shuffles forward for a cuddle. He rests his head on Shane’s arm and looks up at him, brushing away dark brown hair that prick at his eyes.

Shane’s eyes are still shining like the Sun, and he licks his lips before he speaks. “I can’t even remember what I used to do before I met you. I feel like I’ve known you since the moment I was born. It’s only been four days. _Four_. What even was my life before you?”

Shane laughs off the weight of that, but it’s still there. Nicky feels it anchoring his heart down to the pit of his stomach.

“Incredibly dull, I’m assuming” Nicky tries to laugh back. He also tries not to think about it too much. About tomorrow, and what that means. No, he drags his mind back to the present. The present is all that matters. Ever.

“What do you want to do today?” Nicky asks.

“Stay here with you,” Shane reaches for Nicky’s hand. It’ll always be this easy.

“I’ll never be against that,” Nicky beams. “But after that, did you um… Did you want to see your dad in the afternoon?” He asks cautiously, studying Shane’s reactions.

Shane falls silent for a minute. Absent fingers fiddle with Nicky’s through processes of thought that Nicky wants to see. But he waits.

Eventually, Shane nods. “Yeah. I want to.”

***

Another goodbye. Shane doesn’t know if he’s strong enough. But he knows he has to be.

They’d been sitting outside the nursing home for at least twenty minutes in silence, but Nicky doesn’t rush him.

“I’m sorry,” Shane murmurs and dumps his face into his hands.

“It’s okay,” Nicky puts his hand on Shane’s thigh with a supportive pat. “Take your time.”

Shane whispers an almost inaudible “thank you” and takes himself through a few deep breaths. He doesn’t know how to prepare for this. He doesn’t know what to say. Whether to smile or cry.

He wants Nicky to force him to get out of the car and go inside. He _needs _him to.

But instead, when he lifts his head, a compassionate hand slips into his, and maybe he needs this more. Shane looks up at Nicky for a second, matching eyes that flicker with a kind smile. It makes all of this less scary.

“Shall we?” Nicky asks.

Shane squeezes the hand that warms his palm, and nods.

They climb out of the car together and walk hand in hand to the front door. Nicky stays with him through it all, a hand on the small of Shane’s back and he signs in and puts on a visitor’s pass around his neck. The only time Nicky’s hand leaves him is when he has to put on his own.

The worker leads them to his father’s room, and Shane tries to hold it together when the door reads ‘Peter Filan’.

“You can do this, babe,” Nicky whispers, then the hand leaves him as they walk in together.

Shane misses the comforting touch.

“Peter, your son’s here to visit,” the worker introduces him, and Peter’s face looks blank for a second until it lights up. Nicky sits on the chair near the corner to give them some space.

“Oh, you’re the nice boy from my photo! Hello.” Peter smiles ever so brightly when Shane sits on the edge of the bed. He looks at the photo on the nightstand, a photo from his childhood when Shane was ten at the most, holding an ice-cream in one hand and his father’s in the other. “What was your name again?”

“My name’s Shane,” Shane reaches out to hold his father’s hand. It’s well-moisturised. They’re taking good care of him here. He’s glad. “How are you, dad?”

“I’m great. My favourite show’s on soon. I’ve been waiting all day.” Peter points at the TV, then looks back at him, turning his hand around to hold it properly. Shane squeezes back. “How are you, Ryan?”

“I’m doing alright,” Shane stared at his father’s face for a while.

The wrinkles that had settled into his skin, that he remembered making fun of when he was a kid. The years of happiness, of hardship, of love, of life - each wrinkled line tells a story, and Shane’s just glad he got to be a part of it. Shane’s glad he’s here now with some wrinkles of his own, holding this hand.

“I actually uh… I came to say goodbye. I don’t think I’ll be able to come back for a while.”

“Oh where are you going?” Peter’s eyes droop a little, and Shane finds consolation in that.

“Just… on an awfully big adventure. I um, I wanted to say uh…”

Shane had run through this speech so many times in his head over the past couple years. When this day comes, what he would say to his dad. Maybe he could repeat the things he’d said to his mother on her final day. Maybe recite his favourite childhood memories. All the ice-creams he’d bought him. Say how thankful he was for every single moment they’d shared. How thankful he was for every strand of the unconditional love he’d received.

For not letting go of his hand for 14317 days.

“Are you happy?” Shane asks instead.

Peter nods. “My favourite show’s about to come on soon. That makes me a very happy man.” He chortles like Santa Claus, and Shane can’t help but laugh along. He hears Nicky chuckle behind him too.

“As long as you’re happy. Look, dad, I… I just wanted to say thank y-“

“I remember I took you one day to the new ice-cream place that opened up on Saints Road. You were just a little kid back then, ay?”

Shane feels his bottom lip tremble, his throat swelling. He’d been doing so well holding it in. He wasn’t going to let it out now. “Wait, you… do you remember that?”

“Remember what?” Peter looks at him, then at Nicky. “Who’s this, Ryan?”

“Um,” Shane rubs his watery eyes and looks up at Nicky. Nicky shows him a weary grin. “He’s a very special friend of mine.”

The grin turns a little wider, and Nicky looks happy with that answer.

Peter nods, then darts his eyes to the TV when a theme song starts playing. “Oh! My favourite show’s on. I’ve been waiting all day.”

Shane glances at the screen, then back at Peter’s face. He wants to memorise every line. Every wrinkle. Every edge of that excited smile. He just hopes that that smile stays that way forever, if there is a forever.

“Should I leave you to the TV then?”

Peter nods, eyes glued to the screen. “I’ve been waiting all day.”

Shane knows it’s time to stand up. His feet don’t seem to want to move. Neither does his heart. He looks away for a second. Just has to. He feels his eyes flash-flood and his throat impossibly tight.

“I think we should go,” Nicky whispers.

“Right, we should… yeah. Okay.” Shane eventually stands up, his stomach weighted down beyond the floor. He squeezes the hand one last time and leans forward to kiss his father’s forehead. He gets a sweet smile in return, and he knows he has to leave. He knows he has to walk out that door.

Nicky’s hand gently placed on his shoulder becomes his first step.

Lugging his heavy feet, Shane opens the door and is about to leave when he hears the TV volume muted.

“Shane,” Peter calls and Shane looks back, his heart caught in his throat. _Shane_. “Next time you come, can you bring me some of that ice-cream? It was really good ice-cream.”

“Next time?” Shane’s eyes are still clouded. But he still smiles. He really wants to smile. “I promise I will. Next time. Strawberry?”

“And vanilla.”

“And vanilla. Got it.” He really really wants to smile. “Love you, dad.”

“I love you too, Ryan.”

Shane feels Nicky’s hand on his shoulder again. “Come on,” Nicky whispers. Shane nods and follows him out. He wouldn’t have moved if Nicky hadn’t been there.

They walk back to the car in silence, pebbles crunching beneath their feet.

They’re about halfway there when Shane breaks down in tears.

***

When Nicky brings a cup of tea to Shane’s room, he’s lying still in bed, blankets draped over to the top of his head. All Nicky sees is a few strands of dark brown hair sticking out.

“Do you want some tea?”

“I’m okay,” Shane mumbles from underneath that cover.

Nicky pulls a chair from Shane’s desk and sets himself beside the bed. “Come on. Just a sip.”

After long seconds of silence, Shane sits up. He looks a lot better than what Nicky would have expected. Definitely better after letting him take a nap when they got back home hours ago. He hands him the cup and watches as stable hands bring it up to his lips.

“How’re you feeling?” He asks. He lifts himself up and sits down beside the smaller man, bringing an arm around his shoulder.

“Strange,” Shane acknowledges.

“You did well, love,” Nicky feels a little bit at ease when Shane flicks a small smile. “And I can tell he still loves you so much, even if he calls you Ryan.”

Shane chuckles and takes another sip of the tea. He blows on it, watches the ripples crash against the cup, and it brings him solace. But not as much as the arm holding him, and not as much as the final sight of his father that lingers in his heart, of that wide smile. “My dad’s happy,” he lilts with a bittersweet smile.

“He is.”

“And so am I,” Shane looks up from the cup, far into Nicky’s eyes that are glowing just for him. “With you.”

“Me too. With you.” Nicky leans in for a kiss that he wishes he could do forever. “Hey, can we do something I want to do next?”

Shane looks a little surprised. Nicky had never offered something like this before. “Yes. Of course. I’d love that.”

“Can we watch the sunrise tomorrow? Together.”

“We can drive up the hill. Have a morning picnic.” Shane smiles and leans his head on Nicky’s shoulder. His heart warms when a kiss blesses his hair.

“We can fuck in the woods again if you like.”

“No thanks.” Shane lifts his head back up and elbows Nicky’s arm with a laugh. Nicky’s glad, honestly. He thought Shane would be distraught for the whole day after seeing his dad. But no. Shane looks even more uplifted after having some time to think for himself. Liberated. The glass is definitely half full, and Nicky loves that about him.

“Let’s not waste time on sleep tonight. Let’s stay up.”

Nicky nods. “Let’s do that.”

“Do you want to fuck until the sunrise? Indoors.”

“Isn’t that in like six hours?”

“So?”

Nicky barks out a laugh at Shane’s daring flick of the eyebrow. “You want to fuck for _six hours _straight? I don’t think my dick will survive it. Neither will your arse.”

“Hey, don’t underestimate my arse,” mirth dances over Shane’s face as he winks and stands up. He grabs Nicky’s hand and drags him to the bedroom.

Nicky feels his chest tighten with laughter and love, and it’s something he’s still not used to.

He wants everyone to know that he’s actually happy for the first time in his life. He wants to tell his grandma, the people that passed through different stages of his life, even the ants that live in the Amazon. He wants everyone to know. And whoever he’ll meet after he dies, this will be the first thing he tells them.

That he’s finally happy. That he deserves this happiness as much as the next person. Because he knows that now. After forty years, he’s learnt that. Shane has taught him that.

Happiness.

He fully understands what it is now, and he finally has it in the palm of his hand.


	6. Day Five

The sky is still dark.

Shane and Nicky sit on a picnic blanket on top of the grass, arms around each other, about to watch the final ascend of the Sun.

“Pastrami sandwich?” Nicky takes one out of the basket and hands it to him. Shane has to laugh.

“You remembered.”

“Of course. With extra tomatoes too.” Nicky looks utterly proud of himself.

Shane’s proud of him too. For remembering his favourite sandwich obviously, but also for how far Nicky has come, even in just five days.

Five days.

Shane thinks he’s actually lived a good life, and these past five days have showed him that. He’s had it lucky. He can’t imagine the pain of a parent when their child is born and their palm reads a ten. A five. Maybe even a zero. He’s had fourteen thousand, and for that, he’s grateful. He’s grateful for the people he’s met, had by his side, those he loved and received love from.

Thinking about it, he’s had it all.

He’s had a good life.

Shane can smile about it now.

By the time he finishes the sandwich, morning twilight greets them. A sky of black and blue fades into yellow and orange, and something about that feels so liberating, as if today, the Sun is only rising for Nicky and himself.

“That’s beautiful,” Shane comments, eyes fixated on every wave of colour up there.

“Yeah, it is.” Nicky grabs his hand. Shane really does have it all.

They spend a long time in silence, listening to each other’s slow breaths and just looking out at the horizon, taking time for themselves to process it all. Their fingers are tightly entwined.

“I’m hungry. I should have packed a sandwich for myself too,” Nicky breaks the silence with a joke, and Shane chuckles along.

“You said you don’t even like pastrami. Or tomatoes, for that matter.”

“Yeah, but the one from that café you took me to was good.”

“Yours was better, honestly.”

Nicky nudges him with his elbow. Shane simpers and lays his head down on Nicky’s shoulder.

Another comfortable silence follows. Nicky occasionally brushes a kiss into Shane’s flowerbed of hair, lit up by the sunlight that hugs them.

“Hey, do you think there’s a heaven?” Nicky asks after some time, and Shane has a feeling he’s been holding that question back for a while. That Nicky had been trying to find the courage to ask that.

“I don’t know. I’ve never really been religious. There has to be _something_ though, right?” Shane would like to think so, at least.

No one knows what happens once it all ends. Whether it truly is The End, just black for eternity, or if there’s another universe waiting on the other side, ready to welcome you with open arms and kindly wish you luck on your second go at life. Whether you’ll be reborn as an animal. Whether you’ll get to keep your soul, but just in a different physicality. Whether there even is such thing as a soul.

But Shane would like to think there is something waiting for him, whatever that may look like. And he is ready to find out.

“What about you? Do you think so?” Shane asks.

Nicky shrugs. “Who knows. I don’t think I’ll make it in either way. If I end up in hell, will you come with me?”

Shane laughs and shoves him.

Nicky does too, two complementing laughs mixing in that distant canvas of light. “Really though, I… I think wherever I end up, whatever happens, as long as you’re there with me, that’ll be my own kind of heaven.”

Shane looks up at him, a fond glow colouring his smile.

“Can I tell you something?” Nicky’s voice was trembling a little, and Shane leans in for a short kiss to ease him.

“Always.”

“I… I’m a little scared, honestly,” he confesses. Shane whispers a small ‘love’ and holds his hand tighter. “I didn’t used to be. Death was nothing. I had nothing to lose. But now that I do… I’m scared. I hate the thought of losing you. And that makes it so scary.”

Shane looks like he’s holding back tears, and Nicky doesn’t know if it’ll be easier to just see them drop, or to not see Shane ever cry again. Because it hurts even more than himself crying, but he doesn’t want Shane to hold back for him. Feel like he has to be strong for him. Not now, not ever.

Nicky maps out Shane’s eyes, then looks out towards the Sun rising. The beautiful blend of shades that calm his mind.

“I used to think the entire universe hated me,” he continues. “That it had nothing good planned for me and that my whole life was just a waste. I was so ready to die, you know? I didn’t really care that much. Like, it bummed me out. Of course it did. But I was never _afraid_.”

Nicky hears his own voice waver like a weak candle in the wind, and for courage, Nicky looks away from the Sun and into Shane’s eyes that are brighter than the Sun ever could be, despite the tears that are standing in the forefront of them. That lights his candle again. He wants to look into these brown eyes forever. He wants to be the only one to cherish them, with that precious veneer of tears sparkling in a ray of sunshine.

“I think the world was so mean to me just to make it up to me in these last five days. I… I’ve never wanted extra days but right now, I do. It’s all I want. Even just one more day. One more day with you,” Nicky’s voice cracks as the wind blows, gripping around his ankles.

“I know. Me too. Just one.” Shane whispers and lean his forehead on Nicky’s. Two breaths mix in the mere centimetres between them, and it feels like they’re the only two people in the world right now. Nothing else matters. Nicky’s forehead flinches against his as the first tear scrolls down his trembling pale cheek, and Shane’s doesn’t wait long to follow.

Even their tears will follow each other, as much as their hearts will with whatever happens today.

Shane brings his hand up to wipe away his cheek, then Nicky’s, and cups the back of his neck. “I love you so much,” he whispers. They’re so close to each other that every small pressure of breath is engraved on Nicky’s lips until the end of time.

“I love you,” Nicky whispers back, and closes the small gap in between them. “Are you scared?”

“Honestly? Yeah. I am.” Shane tries to smile. He tries to be brave. For Nicky, he _wants _to be brave. Their foreheads are still touching, even the sunlight not finding a way to get in between them. “But I have you by my side, whatever happens. And that makes all of this a little less scary.”

Nicky floats forward for another kiss, and he finds solace in the lips that kiss him back. In the perfect match that they are to his, like puzzle pieces finally finding their place.

They look back out at the rising Sun, and the sky is bright blue. Light peeks over the very few clouds that are up there. It truly is a new day.

This is a new day.

_A new day_, Nicky reminds himself. He looks down at his hand. At the **_1_** that he has found the courage to put his eyes upon for the first time today. He takes a deep breath, tracing around the lines with his finger.

His view of it is blocked when Shane’s hand intercepts and covers the number.

“Don’t look at it,” Shane hums softly. “Look at me.”

Nicky does. He lets out another deep breath and blinks back the thin wet layer that blurs his vision a little. “I will,” he says.

“Do you want to go back home?” Shane offers, and Nicky nods. He gets a final glimpse of the Sun that has risen, and of Shane’s eyes that are reflected in the light. Shane smiles, then gets up and puts out his hand. Nicky grabs it as they walk back to the car.

They drive back down the hill, back onto proper roads that aren’t so bumpy.

“What should we do first when we get back to your place?”

“I don’t know. I could make you a pastrami sandwich if you like. I’ll show you how it’s done properly. I used to run a café, remember?”

“Fuck you, mine were good!”

“They were, they were. I’m joking.”

The red traffic light stops them. When Nicky turns his gaze to get another look at Shane, he’s laughing like an idiot at his own joke, and it’s heavenly.

The light flashes to green again and Nicky tries to focus on the road.

He turns the corner.

For a second, he doesn’t register the two blinding lights that pierce through his vision.

Within a blink, those lights reveal a truck from behind them. It approaches faster than he ever knew a vehicle could move. The screeching sound is offensively loud, tearing through their hearts that are beating way too fast.

Nicky tries to turn the wheel. Tries to floor the pedal.

It’s…

It’s too late.

Nicky darts his head towards Shane like an instinct, and he’s never seen eyes so terrified. Before he can reach out to hold his hand, before he can even utter Shane’s name, the cars collide.

The world flips upside down and tumbles.

_Shane_.

_No._

***

Nicky sits there as the doctor stitches up a wound on his arm.

It’s all he’s got. He doesn’t understand. For the two people in the same car, the same accident, how one can leave walking with just a few scars, and the other one can just…

Nicky doesn’t understand.

The moment the heart monitor fell flat in the ambulance and Shane’s eyes were closed, Nicky had grabbed Shane’s hand. For the first time in five days, they didn’t hold him back.

Nicky can’t even cry.

The stitching doesn’t even hurt.

He doesn’t think anything will anymore. Not after that.

The doctor asks if he’d like to stay overnight. Nicky almost laughs in her face.

He walks out of hospital without even a limp, and he hates himself for it.

He looks out on the footpath in front of him. Sunlight reflects from it, hitting his eyes the wrong way.

He doesn’t know where he’s headed, if he’ll even have a place to go, but he walks anyway.

He looks down at his palm, at the **_1_**, and it’s still bright. It’s still lit up in green. All he can see is Shane’s right hand palm. He remembers seeing the light go out with his own eyes.

Death? It’s not so scary anymore. He’s ready to hold hands with it, now that it’s inevitable, and reminisce about the good times. The bad times. The absolute best times. Then he’s ready to let it guide him to the next part.

Because life? It’s a part of a much longer journey. At least he hopes it is. It better be.

It better be a pathway. A stepping stone. A one way road until he comes face to face with the afterlife that will present him with many different roads. And whatever all those roads promise to hold for him, he’ll only look for the one with Shane’s footprints. The one where Shane’s standing just a few steps further, waiting for him with the kind smile and sunkissed eyes that he’d fallen in love with.

So for today, for the last time with courage, he walks on this one way road.

With life, he walks.

With love, he walks.


End file.
